Federation of Small Businesses

The FSB champions small businesses and the self-employed across the UK, offering vital support through membership services including events, advice, and advocacy.

FSB engaged Direct Access, to assess and improve the accessibility of its member journey — from initial awareness to ongoing service engagement. The aim was to ensure that disabled people experience a fully inclusive and accessible pathway when discovering, joining, and engaging with the organisation.

We began by mapping the complete membership lifecycle, identifying key touchpoints where current or potential members interact with FSB. This included:

• Discovery Stage: Accessibility of marketing materials (online and offline)

• Joining Stage: The membership enrolment process via:

  • Website

  • Telephone

  • In-person interactions

• Engagement Stage: Key service areas:

  • Events

  • Advice line

  • Document hub

Each of these areas was reviewed through the lens of disabled user experience, leveraging the insight of our team of disabled professionals. This brought forward perspectives often overlooked in traditional access audits.

A visual map of the membership journey was developed, documenting where and how disabled users interact with FSB. This mapping allowed us to:

• Pinpoint barriers to accessibility at each stage

• Identify good practices that could be scaled across other services

• Flag overlooked interactions or atypical user journeys

This mapping also included potential “outlier” touchpoints that may not fall under membership, events, or advice services but nonetheless impact user experience — such as automated communications or informal member networking.

Accessibility Assessments of Key Communication Channels

An in-depth audit was conducted across all communication channels, focusing on:

• Website: Navigation, screen-reader compatibility, content structure

• Email: Clarity, accessible formatting (including Word and tagged PDFs)

• Telephone Services: Usability for people with hearing or speech impairments

• Printed Materials: Layout, language complexity, contrast, and font choices

We advised against the use of capitalised text and stylised fonts, and recommended avoiding overlaying text on images — small but powerful changes with immediate impact.

Across the board, we offered tailored recommendations that balanced ease of implementation with meaningful impact.

These included:

• Publishing all critical member-facing documents in both accessible PDF and Word formats

• Applying WCAG 2.2-compliant design principles to website updates

• Integrating user feedback loops with disabled members

• Introducing plain language and Easy Read versions of complex documents

• Providing practical staff training to improve inclusive communications