Almost half of the projects we’ve funded since April 2024 are creating or improving digital access to heritage. Making sure the online resources we fund are accessible to people with disabilities – who are one in four of the population – is a condition of our grants. 

Explore how two organisations we’ve funded are embedding accessibility and co-creation with disabled people throughout their projects.

The Secret Garden at St Fagans: sharing heritage in ways everyone can understand

Innovate Trust are working in partnership with St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff to involve 80 people with learning disabilities to replant and research a forgotten cottage garden at the museum. Participants have made friends and developed confidence and autonomy in a safe and welcoming environment. They’ve also helped develop online resources like digital trails and videos explaining the history and gardening work at the cottage. They’re sharing what they’ve learned for others with learning disabilities who may visit the museum in the future, or who can’t make the trip in person.

Lucy Curtis, Skills and Wellbeing Project Manager at Innovate Trust, says: “Many individuals face barriers to accessing their community. Digital participation can bridge this gap, making heritage activities more accessible to a wider audience.” 

Information on the Secret Garden webpage is written in plain language, headings guide users to different topics and the page is broken into sections, making it easy for everyone to understand and find what they’re looking for. Images have alt (alternative) text and videos explaining the gardening and historical research have closed captions, which help people with sight and hearing impairments experience the visual and audio elements.

The Global Virtual Museum: lowering barriers to access museum spaces

The National Paralympic Heritage Trust has created a Global Virtual Museum, researched and co-curated with people who have lived experience of disability. The digital galleries use 3D models, text, images, videos and trails to tell stories of Paralympic history. Disability sports organisations have contributed objects and histories representing athletes and communities with lived experience of cerebral palsy, dwarfism, blindness or partial blindness, and galleries also explore place-based Paralympic stories of communities from Hampshire to Japan. 

This virtual museum is part of the wider Becoming Seamlessly Inclusive project, which aims to widen participation in Paralympic heritage.

Vicky Hope-Walker, CEO of the National Paralympic Heritage Trust, says: “Inclusive collaboration with a diverse workforce and people with lived experience of disability to create meaningful content has been as important as the digital design for accessibility.” 

Accessibility features of the virtual museum include audio descriptions, guided tours and screen-readable resources. The site’s accessibility statement sets people’s expectations of how well the site meets their access needs.

Reflecting on what the team has learned from the project, Vicky says: “Working with communities like British Blind Sport has inspired us to think creatively about inclusive virtual experiences and has changed our practice across all our exhibitions both digital and physical.”

Tips from the experts 

Simon Jones from Studio 24, the specialist digital accessibility agency that updated our good practice guidance, says: “Accessibility is not about perfection. Small changes add up to a more positive experience for many people.

“And making a website accessible helps everyone – it makes it easier to use and accessible content is better indexed by search engines.”

Simon’s five top tips for addressing the most common web accessibility issues – which you can learn more about in our guidance – are:

• make sure text can be clearly read against the background
• use alt text to describe images to those who can’t see them
• write descriptive hyperlink text telling people where they’re being taken – no more ‘click here’
• use informative headings and correct heading styles to help screen reader users, search engine crawlers and people skim-reading
• make sure your website can be navigated by keyboard (like pressing tab to move through the page) for users who don’t use a mouse

Put accessible digital practice into action

Innovate Trust and the National Paralympic Heritage Trust’s accessible websites show how the principles of our digital accessibility requirements can be applied in a real-life project.

Josie Fraser, Head of Digital Policy at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, says: “These two impactful projects have broadened their audiences by creating inclusive experiences both in person and online. Designing with accessibility standards in mind from the start, and involving people with disabilities in creating and testing digital resources, has been crucial to their success.”

Read our updated introduction to accessibility good practice guidance for practical advice on how to design, create and test accessible digital materials.