From Feeling Like a “Useless Idiot” to Becoming an Award- Winning Accessibility Advocate and Entrepreneur.

From Feeling Like a “Useless Idiot”

TO BECOMING AN AWARD-WINNING ACCESSIBILITY ADVOCATE AND ENTREPRENEUR

Autistic entrepreneur Callum Gamble and his mother and business partner Caren Launus-Gamble tell DRM readers how a bad experience took them on a passionate mission for digital inclusion.

HAVING been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when he was eight and slower at processing information than his peers, attending mainstream school wasn’t easy for Callum. Still, his determination and resilience got him excellent results in his GCSEs and A-levels. In 2019, he graduated with a first-class honours degree in Creative Media Technology from Leeds Beckett University and got a job at one of the big digital agencies in Leeds as a front-end Web Developer.

“That is where the reality of neurodivergent employment set in,” Caren says. “After only three weeks, Callum had to leave his job, having been humiliated in front of his colleagues and put on a performance warning by his line manager. Despite disclosure, the company refused to make any reasonable adjustments for his autism.”

”I felt like a useless idiot,” Callum remembers. “I was given one week of training on a system I had never used before and was put on time-tracked client work in my second week without any further support. I froze with anxiety and couldn’t complete even the simple tasks properly. On trying to explain to my line manager how my autism affected me, he just said, ‘We all have problems, Callum. You’re giving me anxiety now!”

“DESPITE DISCLOSURE, THE COMPANY REFUSED TO MAKE ANY REASONABLE ADJUSTMENTS FOR HIS AUTISM.”

“Our first reaction could have been to take legal action,” Caren explains, “but this would’ve created a negative connotation for a condition most people don’t know much about or perceive as a hindrance in business already.”

Callum and Caren saw a positive opportunity. They didn’t feel bitter towards Callum’s line manager. He hadn’t set out to destroy Callum’s confidence; he was ignorant and under pressure to deliver his department’s work in the shortest time possible.

They decided to lead by example instead and set up the neurodiverse web development business KreativeInc Agency. The focus was initially on highlighting the talents of neurodivergent people like Callum. They wanted to demonstrate how, with the right adjustments, people with autism and other neurodivergent conditions such as ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia etc., could be allowed to use their skills and talents to benefit their employers.

“Neurodivergent people are different thinkers,” Callum explains. “Different thinkers can come up with out-of-thebox concepts that are fresh and new. To benefit from this, employers should ask the employee what they could do to accommodate their different workplace needs.”

Having navigated the first six months with success, KreativeInc Agency was hit by the Coronavirus pandemic in March 2020 as clients cancelled planned projects.

On discovering the dismal state of web accessibility in the UK, Callum and Caren took the opportunity to use the ensuing quiet months to adapt their business model to the new situation. With people now working from and being isolated at home, digital platform accessibility had become essential.

“In the UK, 70% of websites are not accessible to people with access needs, such as blind and visuallyimpaired people, motor-impaired and other disabled and impaired people,” Callum explains. “Over the next three months, we started to research web accessibility, completed training courses and implemented best practices in our business.”

Most UK digital platforms have been designed and developed without giving any thought to people with access difficulties. Blind and physically impaired people, for example, use assistive technology to navigate the web. If a platform is incompatible with this technology, it is useless to its disabled site visitors. This is not a deliberate failure. Most business owners and even web developers haven’t heard of web accessibility. They also don’t know that UK businesses lost £17.1bn in 2019 when frustrated site users clicked away from a sale because they could not get to grips with a site. A BBC study in 2017 has estimated that the ‘Purple Pound’ is worth £249bn a year to the economy. With nearly 14 million disabled people in the UK, businesses ignore one in five potential customers by having inaccessible websites. The commercial impact of this is enormous.

Under the Equalities Act 2010, companies with inaccessible digital platforms are also unlawfully discriminating against disabled people. Again, most businesses aren’t aware of this, as there are currently no lawsuits forcing the issue in the UK.

Callum says, “We want to make people aware of the impact on the users and on businesses, educate them and encourage them to take action. We do this by making accessibility tangible with personal website user reviews and with our own experience on the web. We show the issue from the users perspective. So far, the term ‘web accessibility’ has been floating around but quickly brushed aside because people don’t understand what it means. We want to change this; make it personal.”

KreativeInc Agency now creates accessible websites and trains other web agencies, developers and companies with in-house digital departments to do the same.

“Our mission is to make the UK digitally inclusive by 2025, and we cannot do this on our own,” Caren reveals.

“Web accessibility is not a tick-box exercise but a continuing process,” Callum adds. “It means anticipating any access needs, implementing them in the design and development of digital platforms and reacting positively to user feedback. You cannot get it right for everybody every time, but you can listen and find solutions. Web accessibility starts with the willingness to make access equal for everyone.”

“DIFFERENT THINKERS CAN COME UP WITH OUT-OF-THE-BOX CONCEPTS THAT ARE FRESH AND NEW.”

Caren Launus-Gamble & Callum Gamble,

Co-Founders at KreativeInc Agency,

Website: kreativeincagency.co.uk

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/claunusgamble

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