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Gareth Ford Williams

Director, Ab11y.com

Gareth has so far had a 36-year career path that has made no sense whatsoever and has included being a sound engineer, artist, business development manager, design manager, product manager, joining BBC Marketing and Audiences in 2003, finally landing in the UX team in 2010 where he was a ‘Head of…’ for 12 years.

He has dyslexia and ADHD which are not superpowers and has a penchant for both cake and beer, although he rarely mixes the two.

2005 Gareth founded the BBC’s Digital Accessibility Team. Over the course of the first 3 years the Accessibility Team were an integral part of iPlayer’s core product team and ensured the BBC iPlayer V1.0 launched as a fully accessible product.

Gareth also established the Design Research Team in 2010 and subsequently became a Head of UX Design.

Whilst at the BBC some of his achievements included:

  • 2009 he wrote and delivered the accessibility requirements for the YouView.com platform, including firsts for single-switch access, cognitive UI design, and a built-in magnifier

  • 2011 his team pioneered the world's first Mobile Accessibility Guidelines, BBC MAG

  • 2012 he established the world’s first Accessibility Champions Network and in the same year was a key contributor to GamesAccessibilityGuidelines.com

  • 2014 he co-wrote the first physical workplace neurodiversity guidelines for BBC CAPE

  • 2016 he co-managed the development of the BBC’s accessible typeface, BBC Reith, and has gone on to become a specialist in accessible font design

  • 2017 he launched the BBC GEL Tech Docs project to make accessibility easier to deliver using Documentation Driven Development

  • In 2021 After working on the BBC’s re-brand and policies, Gareth left the BBC to work as a co-director of AB11y.com, to focus his efforts on developing the world's first ethical accessibility quantitative inclusive UX data platform.

Gareth is also a prolific public speaker and regularly writes articles on accessibility in its broadest sense.

https://garethfordwilliams.medium.com/

Classes

John Slatin AccessU 2022