Diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of nine, Abi has used computers and technology to help her succeed throughout her education and in employment. Driven by her own experiences Abi has spent the past 2 decades working to make technology accessible and inclusive for everyone including leading R&D projects into assistive technology innovation and supporting organisations in the public, private and education sector to meet digital accessibility standards and embed inclusive design. She also collaborates with researchers and policymakers to identify best practices for developing assistive technology, improve accessibility standards and regulations.

Abigail James

Abi recently joined the accessibility the Digital Accessibility team at Barclays, responsible for ensuring that the bank’s digital services work for everyone, including disabled customers or colleagues.

Barclays has been actively pursuing an accessibility programme for several years and has a public ambition to become the most accessible FTSE company, sharing what works with other businesses. They’re focused on leveraging inclusive technology that enables and empowers everyone to work, bank and reach their full potential. Barclays has seen that their investment in accessible services and support for disabled and older customers has helped hugely during the COVID crisis as customers increasingly do their banking digitally and staff work from home. Abi will be discussing some of the additional support Barclays has added in response to COVID, include proactively contacting potentially vulnerable customers and prioritising them in telephone banking queues or offering cash delivery services and volunteer shopping devices to help customers who are shielding at home pay carers. She will also be reflecting back on how this exceptional year has affected digital channels which has seen millions more customers using more features on their online banking website and mobile banking app and focussed the need for digital banking to be accessible for all.

 

 

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