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My screen magnifier has made it possible for me to use the web again. I just wish more companies kept their websites simple.

Claudia is 54 and lives in Huddersfield with her husband Len and daughter Dana who is 12. Her other two children are away at university.

Claudia is partially sighted due to glaucoma and diabetes.

She works part time as a social worker with Kirklees Council. She used to visit people in their homes, but lost her confidence as her sight got worse. Now she鈥檚 based in the office, and she鈥檚 hoping to start training and mentoring new social workers.

Devices and technology

Claudia鈥檚 setup at work includes ZoomText (software that lets you magnify what鈥檚 on screen), a large monitor and a high visibility keyboard. She has a similar setup at home.

She recently got a Kindle Fire for reading - she has tried its screen reader function, but she prefers to use the magnification to read herself or use audiobooks.

Claudia prefers phone calls to emails and never sends text messages. She uses the 鈥榮peech to text鈥� feature on her smartphone, which records a message and sends it to the person she鈥檚 contacting.

Goals and wishes

Claudia wants to be able to phone any company she needs to contact - it鈥檚 so much quicker and easier for her to call than to write.

She also wishes there was less clutter on some websites - she just wants to get on with what she鈥檚 doing.

Frustrations

Claudia tends to forget to scroll horizontally when she鈥檚 using ZoomText. When she鈥檚 filling in a form, she sometimes misses fields or help text when they鈥檙e next to each other (rather than above and below each other).

She hates it when she鈥檚 using ZoomText and a pop-up box appears off screen. She then needs to scroll to find and close the pop-up.

It鈥檚 confusing if the layout of a form isn鈥檛 consistent - for example, if she鈥檚 been magnifying a certain part of the screen to complete a form, but then that part is blank on the next page.

Sometimes it鈥檚 hard for Claudia to see web content clearly when she borrows her husband鈥檚 tablet, if the colour contrast isn鈥檛 good.

Making things better for Claudia

What to do	Further reading
Follow best practice for accessible form design - for example, leave enough space between fields, and position field labels directly above the fields they relate to.	for user interfaces, part of the 188体育 Design System.
Make your layout consistent and predictable. For example, make sure the position of things like 鈥楴ext鈥� and 鈥楤ack鈥� buttons is consistent.	, WCAG 2.0 guideline.
Do user research with people who use screen magnification software.	User research for government services: an introduction, guidance on 188体育.
Use a colour contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 between text and its background.	, on the GDS Accessibility blog. .
Use responsive design and avoid publishing to PDFs (which you can鈥檛 customise or zoom).	, post on the GDS Accessibility blog.

More reading

You may find the following resources useful:

• 鈥楧esigning for users with low vision鈥� is one of a set of posters designed by the Home Office. You can
• , blog post by The Practical Dev
• , article by axess labs
• , guidance by the BBC Accessibility team

Statistics about sight loss

About 2 million people in the UK have sight loss, and this figure is expected to double by 2050.

Individuals from black and Asian populations have a higher risk of diabetic eye disease and sight loss than white populations.

Less than one-third of people who were registered blind or partially sighted were offered training to help them get around in the year after they were registered.