Solihull Council: Designing for accessibility | Stuff and Nonsense

Part of our brief when asked by Solihull Council to redesign their home page was simple:

We do not want it to look like a council site.

That was music to our ears as we hate to do anything for the sake of convention. So having been freed from the constraints of local government design boredom, we set about designing a home page that is unlike any other councils we have found.

Out went the traditional three-column layout so overused by thousands of templated pages, to be replaced with a asymetrical grid design that fills the screen with two wide columns for content. Out went the domineering primary red and blue and in came subtle shades of those council corporate colours.

But what about accessibility? Surely sites should be accessible by law and doesn't that mean that they have to look boring?

We design your content to be as accessible and meet the needs of as many people as possible, regardless of their abilities or the type of device they choose to access the web

We build accessibility into our design process, rather than considering it an external factor. This benefits everyone including our clients who save money on retrofitting and have happier customers.

Wider accessibility is as much a part of good design as page layout, graphic design or typography. When considered correctly it results in stunning, accessible designs.