Eden Project : Symbolising accessibility

Visual prompts illustrate a supportive approach.

The Site

The Eden Project, a UK educational charity and ecological visitor attraction, reflects its aims through a visual translation system.

The Eden Project’s global site is a gateway for information about its activities and philosophies as well as for ticket bookings and its online shop. A universal top navigation bar is supplemented by a large ‘footer’ that includes an Accessibility menu. This features a highlighted ‘Enable Point symbols’ heading and a What is Point link.

Clicking ‘enable’ activates the Point symbols system, so that when the cursor is hovered over a word on the page it is picked out on a red ground and a small pop-up appears containing graphic images conveying the meaning of that word. A grey ground indicates a word not covered by the system. The footer heading also changes, to ‘Disable Point symbols’; click to switch off the system. What is Point, the explanation page, describes how to use the system and has a ‘tell us what you think’ link for providing feedback.

The Takeaway

The Eden Project’s Point symbols add to a suite of accessibility features such as tab key navigation and optimisation of interactive media for keyboard users to reinforce the championing of inclusiveness that is a feature of its work offline. The Point system enriches the online experience for users with reading difficulties, low levels of literacy or from overseas, but not at the expense of other audience types.

The Point images are taken from the Widgit system, a set of 7,000 symbols covering a 40,000-word vocabulary that has been developed over 20 years for use around the world and has already been deployed by Eden on signage and exhibits at its attractions. Its aim is to support learning and communication through illustrating the meaning of individual words. One shortcoming here is that it isn’t extended to the online shop, which might aggrieve Point users as their assistant is left at the door. Perhaps the shop’s product imagery is considered guide enough; more likely it’s because the shop is on a micro-site and enjoys a degree of management autonomy that hasn’t bought fully into the accessibility drive.

First published on 08 December, 2009