Can you do good engagement work if you’re bad at accessibility?

The honest answer? Probably not.

Many organisations signal their commitment to engagement in their strategies

and plans. At the same time, they are working hard to meet accessibility requirements – from WCAG to the NHS Accessible Information Standards and wider equality duties.

Yet we continue to hear the same thing from communities. Engaging with services is still difficult for people with specific communication needs.

This raises an important question for us.

If people can’t access your communication or services easily, can your engagement ever be fully inclusive?

Engagement begins earlier than you think

Engagement is often understood as an event, a workshop, a survey or a conversation.

At Open Voice Lab we know that engagement starts much earlier. It begins when people access information about your organisation or need your services.

Those able to navigate your organisation do so with confidence, while others are excluded long before you ask them for feedback.

The outcome is always the same: some voices are consistently easier to hear than others.

“Let us know if you need this in another format”

Many communications include a line offering alternative formats on request.

A necessary line signalling a desire to be flexible and responsive. It’s impractical, after all, to produce every communication in every possible format or language. We suggest there is a middle ground though.

In practice, putting the onus on the individual to let you know what they need is a barrier in itself. They must identify the barrier, make contact, and explain their needs within a system they may already struggle to communicate with.

We believe accessibility works best when it is anticipated rather than requested. There is often more organisations can do.

Accessibility and trust

Accessibility is often framed as compliance or technical delivery – but we need to also talk about trust.

When communication feels difficult to access, people may reasonably question whether their participation is truly expected or valued. For communities who have experienced barriers repeatedly, inaccessible information can reinforce a sense that services were not designed with them in mind so why bother getting involved and giving their feedback later down the line.

Engagement asks people to share their experiences and perspectives. That requires trust. This trust will have been shaped by the everyday interactions with your organisation.

Recognising the pressures organisations face

Accessibility is rarely ignored because people don’t care. More often, teams are balancing competing priorities, limited training opportunities, stretched resources, and complex guidance.

The responsibility of accessibility cannot sit with one individual or team within an organisation. It requires a commitment across an organisation – in leadership decisions, resources, and culture.

Listening beyond formal engagement

Through our work, we’ve seen that communities are already sharing experiences and insights every day. Conversations happen in community spaces, peer networks, support groups, and informal settings.

Good engagement involves recognising these existing conversations and listening continuously, not only when you initiate the conversation.

This means:

• drawing insight from multiple sources

• understanding barriers people experience in real contexts

• meeting communities where they already are

• recognising conversations happening about services, not only those organised by you

Accessibility as part of engagement design

Accessible engagement goes beyond producing compliant documents. It involves practical choices about how work is planned and delivered, including:

• creating accessible communications as standard

• understanding your communities and planning alternative formats in advance

• building reasonable adjustments into delivery

• budgeting for translation and interpretation, including BSL

• choosing formats and locations that reduce barriers

• developing relationships with community organisations that help you do this better

A shared responsibility

Perhaps we need to reframe our initial question.

How can engagement become more inclusive if accessibility is treated as separate from it?

In our experience, progress happens when accessibility is understood not as an additional requirement, but as a core part of how organisations communicate, listen, and build relationships.

It is ongoing work. It requires learning, adjustment, and investment. But it is also fundamental to ensuring engagement reflects the full diversity of the communities it exists to support.

How Open Voice Lab can help

At Open Voice Lab, we work alongside organisations to strengthen the connection between accessibility and engagement. This includes:

• training teams to create accessible documents and communications

• advising on accessible engagement approaches

• supporting strategies that help organisations meet communities where they are

• helping teams triangulate insight from multiple listening sources

Because meaningful engagement starts with making participation possible.

If you’re thinking about how accessibility and engagement could work better together in your organisation, we’d be happy to start that conversation with you.