Enabling businesses to self-assess accessibility

Overview

Organisation: Motionspot
Role: Freelance UX Designer
Time frame: 1 month

Businesses across the UK must meet minimum accessibility standards in their built environments, but many struggle to understand and comply with these requirements.

As a freelance UX designer for an inclusive design consultancy, my brief was to design a web-based tool that enables commercial clients, such as hotels and commercial real estate companies, to perform self-service accessibility audits. Backed by government funding, the tool had to provide clear guidance, actionable recommendations, and support for diverse accessibility needs.

The aim was to empower businesses to identify and address accessibility barriers while advancing Motionspot's mission of fostering inclusion.

Problem Space

Due to tight constraints imposed by the government grant, we did not have the time or resources to conduct a detailed discovery into the space. Additionally, the consultancy did not have in-house UX designers or developers.

The challenge was to create a proof of concept that could:

  • Illustrate the key features of the tool to an outsourced development agency
  • Provide developer-ready assets that were easy to implement
  • Clearly communicate accessibility requirements alongside the designs

Approach

Given the limited timeline and resources, I focused on a lean, structured design process that could deliver quickly while remaining grounded in user needs.

My approach combined early-stage strategy, visual exploration, and iterative refinement to produce a prototype and handover assets that were practical for developers and user-focused in their intent.

Understand

Jobs-to-be-done

To kick off the project, I facilitated a Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) workshop with the consultancy. The goal of this workshop was to answer the questions:

  1. What is the core job the user is trying to achieve?
  2. What steps do users go through to complete the job
  3. Where along these steps do users struggle today?
  4. What outcomes matter to users along these steps?

By mapping the main jobs, sub-jobs, and underlying tasks, we created a job map that laid the foundation for the core journeys the tool needed to support. This helped the team identify opportunities for features that would genuinely support businesses in performing accessibility audits, rather than relying on assumptions.

Competitor analysis

Alongside this, we conducted a competitor analysis to understand how other self-service audit tools guided users through complex processes. We examined products such as SafetyCulture, focusing on:

  • User flows
  • Task presentation
  • How actionable recommendations were surfaced

This research highlighted established patterns we could adapt specifically for accessibility audits.

Design

With these insights in place, I began visually exploring the user journeys. I sketched low-fidelity flows and wireframes, concentrating on key points in the audit process where users would need the most guidance.

These early concepts were shared quickly with the team to gather feedback, enabling rapid iteration and refinement. Collaborative design critique sessions were especially valuable at this stage, allowing us to challenge assumptions and improve usability before moving into higher-fidelity work.

As the designs matured, I developed a lightweight design system aligned with the consultancy’s brand. This system defined:

  • Typography
  • Colour usage
  • Spacing
  • Core component patterns

Having this shared reference significantly smoothed the developer handover.

Finally, the refined wireframes were translated into a high-fidelity interactive prototype. This brought the tool to life by demonstrating the audit workflow, guidance prompts, and actionable recommendations in a cohesive, user-friendly interface.

Impact

The project delivered ready-to-implement assets that enabled the consultancy and development team to move quickly into build and iteration.

Despite the tight timeline, the work was completed in just two months and resulted in a functional prototype that clearly communicated the tool’s potential.

Although the project is currently on hold pending further funding, the design system, prototype, and handover assets provide a strong foundation for future development—ensuring the tool can scale and continue to empower businesses to improve accessibility in their spaces.

Enabling businesses to self-assess accessibility - Jonathan Priestley