A 10-step approach to inclusive branding, using the BBC as an example
A few days ago the BBC announced and presented its new branding system, and with tired predictability there was a backlash from anyone who doesn’t like change, people that are amateur designers and those who do not realise why change is needed for any organisation to become more inclusive.
I had the honour of being part of the evolution of this project and I will explain why a project like this makes sense if an organisation wants to show that inclusion not only matters but is a fundamental and integrated part of its ethics and culture.
The BBC has a long standing history of inclusion, which you can read about more in a previous article or in this presentation at BBC GAAD from 2019. This is something to keep in mind when considering the BBC’s branding, and in fact any branding because a brand itself is a promise in itself.
These promises are often conveyed in organisations policies or mission statements, and also in brand positioning or propositions.
Where an organisations uses words like “everyone” or “diversity” then accessibility has to be a core consideration because without it both of these words are undermined.
A logo is a signifier of ownership and involvement which comes with associations of things that the organisations stands or strives for. In the BBC’s case this covers a lot of ground but includes things like quality and inclusion. As such, where possible any brand identity and its related equites should imbue those qualities in the way they are executed.
When working on a new or young brand, or organisation with just a few product offerings, brands can more plastic as the organisation is sill evolving its identity, purpose and culture. But when an organisation has nearly 100 years of history and enormous complexity, with multiple offerings for TV, radio and online, covering both domestic and international territories in 44 languages, there is complexity and scale which makes this a much more considered process.
What was a key catalyst for change in the BBC branding started several years ago when the BBC’s user experience team pitched the idea to the wider business of developing a single font family for the BBC.
Marketing, Visual Journalism and other departments got on board quickly with the idea and the momentum soon got the Executive Committee’s backing.
The project was well thought through because it would become self-financing in that if the new font replaced all other fonts used, paying for itself just from the saving in font licences, but it was also a big opportunity in terms of delivering more inclusive reading experiences for people with vision impairment or dyslexia.
I was the accessibility advisor brought in at the start of that project, and my boss and Chief Design Officer at that time Colin Burns and the Creative Director at that time David Bailey, wanted to maximise the positive impact a font could have wherever it was implemented. They rapidly formed a stakeholder group from across the organisation and introduced us to the agency we would be working with, Dalton Maag, lead by Bruno Maag, a designer famous for being a neuroscience nerd with strong belief that font design was the foundation to all-inclusive visual reading experiences.
The brief was massive and we knew that the font had to balance the emotional needs of a brand with such a long history, the needs of users and technical requirements of the systems it needed to be integrated into to ensure it could be implemented in everything from digital products, to TV graphics, closed caption subtitling, signage and eventually the brand itself, whilst supporting as many languages as possible that BBC services are provided in.
The extensive user and neuroscientific research that informed the decisions ultimately paid off, and the learning from this and many of the resources used can be found in this article on font accessibility, and the testing results for the performance of BBC Reith can be accessed in the Readability Group’s font readability study.
Once we had BBC Reith and it’s Arabic counterpart BBC Qalam we, the BBC that is, had a robust foundation that was being implemented across it’s digital services, in closed captioning, TV graphics and in programme brands that technically worked, didn’t jar with the cultural aesthetic of the BBC and improved the readability of all it’s visual reading experiences.
The next stage was the brand itself. BBC Creative and BBC UX&D co-lead the project and early on the conversation turned to accessibility. We had a more inclusive font, but what else could we do beyond that to enhance inclusion?
We identified several opportunities that would improve the performance of the brand and have a significant impact on services. These were, Colour Contrast, Colour and Meaning, Alternative Text, Iconography, Audio Branding and Functional Animation. There had also to be a socio-economic lens to the decision making similar to those in this article on socio-economic accessibility, as with any organisation you have to consider the impact of change on your whole audience especially the ones who could be excluded by any bad decisions.
Unfortunately I left the BBC before the end of the project so I’m still waiting to see how much of this is rolled out, but so far it looks like most of the goodness has been retained.
From this work I have put together a set of core principles, which are based ion the types of issues discussed by the designers and mangers involved.
These are what I believe could be utilised by any organisation to enable their brand or brand family to be optimised for accessibility.
If you do use these my tip is to try not to think of any of these in isolation, they work together as they mostly create design redundancies for each other.
1. Font and Typography
I simply can’t emphasise this enough. If you haven’t chosen a performant font that is emotionally, technically and functionally accessible, then most of the rest of the visual accessibility features will be compromised.
The typographic treatment can also have huge negative impacts. Highly legible font experiences can easily be broken by non-functional typographic treatments. If you want people to be able to read words, make sure they are readable and avoid tiny type, negative line spacing, overlapping type etc, without checking it with people who might be impacted by it.
2. Colour Contrast.
Colour contrast is incredibly important for people with poor vision and there are tools that can enable you to meet contrast but it is a double edged sword.
It is incredibly useful for legibility for many vision impairments it can also create issues for people with conditions that cause light sensitivity, otherwise known as photophobia.
Conditions can be a wide ranging as eye conditions such as blepharospasm or progressive supranuclear palsy, cognitive conditions including autism or irlen syndrome and other conditions such as migraine headaches, strokes or fibromyalgia.
So think about the application of contrast not in isolation but with other elements like iconography, animation, text alternatives and audio signifiers, and please research with a wide group of users to ensure you balance requirements, and make sure testing is done in context. If this is TV branding, test using end user equipment in the types of ambient light settings they have at home, or for on demand, test in strong or weak ambient light.
This is a very useful tool for checking colour contrast:
3. Colour and Meaning.
There are two considerations here. The first is for people who have a group of conditions commonly known as colour blindness. This affects about 1 in every 40 people, predominantly men, and the impact if not considered can be profound.
Colour is a key part of any brand but make sure first that the brand and the way the brand signposts products or services is not dependent on colour, you might also want to use a colour blindness simulator to help optimise any signposting or brand family differentiation. These simulators aren’t perfect, but they are good enough to help designs be more optimal for this audience.
The second consideration is for people who can perceive colour but might not be able to process written language or iconography so easily. This can impact across a wide group of people with cognitive or learning difficulties. Colour associations are therefore key and once associations are learned they are echoed in many ways, even in colour balances in TV trails and idents.
4. Abstract Shape Equities.
For those who don’t know what a brand equity is, it can be anything tangible that makes up a branding system. This could be font, colour or a specific arrangement of shapes used.
Packaging designers are particularly good at this as for some brands we can instantly recognise not just the manufacturer but the individual product without ever having to read the words. Great examples are CocaCola cans or Heinz tins.
These designs evolve to stay contemporary but do so in a way to not lose instant recognition. Most sighted people subconsciously use equities to identify particular products on shelves packed with competitors.
Many people who struggle with text because they have poor vision, a learning difficulty, low literacy or a cognitive condition that impacts on their ability to process text, can depend on equities to help them identify the product they want or navigate different brands within a family. So if you remove a shape, change colours or do anything drastic you might be effectively throwing an invisibility cloak over your own brand for those audiences.
This does not stop you exploiting those equities and using them to establish association and connections between sub brands, and they can be used in accessible and playful ways.
The BBC blocks have been the starting point for each of the new BBC digital product brands, and each of them reference their subject too. Visual puns can be incredibly useful in this way to telling people something about the offering.
The following article is an excellent summary of the recent changes to the BBC’s branding that includes example animations.
5. Iconography
For most brands, especially digital brands, there are icons that are part of the brand language. These icons can play key part in orientation of the products or services provided.
They should sit well with the rest of the elements of the brand but also ensue in doing so they do not compromise their meaning.
Icons should follow conventions where possible, and in that respect they should be mindful of cultural conventions depending on where in the world the service is provided, and this should be as literal and unambiguous as possible.
The BBC has an icon set that was designed by the UX team and Dalton Maag, as part of the work on the typeface, BBC Reith. These follow established conventions where possible and sit comfortably as part of the brand family.
They follow conventions and are signifiers for the what they are signposting or for the function they are conveying.
This type of project has to be extensively researched and tested with people who are dependant on iconography for orientation and comprehension.
6. Orientation Redundancy.
We’ve already covered the use of shape, colour, iconography and there is also the text itself, but one thing that is really important is that understanding where you are on the estate of any brand or sub-brands, there is never the dependence on a single element in terms of navigation.
It’s an established practice in accessibility and usability for redundancy to be designed in, so graphics should not be solely dependant on colour for understanding because that would exclude people who cannot perceive the differences of particular colours.
This is one of the reasons why the BBC’s editorial guidelines recommend, “Presentation announcers should ensure that all relevant information is conveyed verbally as well as visually” and to, “ spot-check in monochrome to ensure graphics are accessible to people with colour blindness.”
This consideration is also relevant to branding and you will notice that the BBC logos are accompanied by text of the name of the product or service. They can also be identified by the colour or abstract shapes, and this can extend into the provision of alt text and any associated audio branding.
In this way redundancy gives everyone a comparative connection with the brand’s assets.
7. Functional Animation.
Animations can be really useful, but they can also create barriers, and this predominantly comes down to function.
Animations are useful as they can be part of the redundancy of a brand, they can explain what options are available and also help customers notice things. This is called the Pop-Out Effect.
But there is a fine line between function and barrier as designers need to ensure they are not overly distracting to people with ADHD, cause motion sickness, do things that could be distressful or triggering to someone who is autistic, or even in extreme cases be triggering for someone with photosensitive epilepsy.
This is not saying that animations are bad because if they are done considerately they can be hugely beneficial.
There are settings on devices for reduced motion and these should be supported in the development of a digital brand animations. Responding to these settings in a similar way to supporting dark mode, will help ensure animations do not appear for people who need to avoid them.
There is a very useful guide from BBC GEL on accessible animations.
Harding test test is also useful for testing triggers for photosensitive epilepsy in videos and animations.
8. Alternative Text.
Textual equivalents to brand assets including logos and icons are vital for several reasons. They provide orientation information to people who are blind because the text will be read out by their screen reader, but they can also be vital for people who have a vision impairment or a cognitive condition such as autism as a fall back to ensuring they are understanding the signposting or function the image is conveying.
In this regard alternative text is pretty straight foreword and this process should help deliver meaningful text for brand assets:
- Does the asset need alternative text? If the image is not the logo, does not contain text, is not signposting something or explaining a function, it might be considered as furniture. In that case just leave it silent.
- If it is a logo and it does not have a function, like being a button or a link, just use the name of the brand e.g. “BBC One”, unless it is a page about branding, then you might want to consider describing the logo.
- If it is literal, like an icon or functional image, then just use an appropriate noun or verb. Icons are really easy as they usually start out as a list of words that need icons. Use that original list of words as they appeared in the design brief as the alt text.
9. Audio Branding.
Lots of brand systems also have audio elements. There are start-up tones for operating systems or applications, ident sounds or music, musical bed backgrounds, functional feedback sounds, tones of voice or delivery etc.
All of these have a functional element and can help different people orientate and engage with a product or service.
To ensure these can be learned and understood it is worth ensuring that vision impaired, especially congenitally blind users, as well as autistic users, are part of any research or test group. This will help identify any issues with comprehension and function.
It is also worth considering that if any sounds have a function, like audio feedback, that differentiation by tone alone can be problematic. Testing with people who have congenital amusia , commonly known as tone deafness, will ensure that the sounds are as accessible as possible. This was the reason why the audio feedback on the UK Digital Help Scheme and YouView platforms are rhythmic. They are also all 1khz tones because this compensates for any users with hearing loss either at the top or bottom of the hearing range.
10. Comparative Voice and Tone.
Last is something that is a bit less tangible but no less important. The way a brand communicates through spoken, written or visual language must be easy to understand for all customers. The emotional pitch for a brand can be conveyed in many ways and in the previous 9 recommendations we have looked at different modalities and user groups.
So when you are seeking feedback on this element as part of the audience research, ensure there is a consistent understanding of what is intended regardless of how a customer engages with the brand. So for instance people who are blind should understand this aspect of the brand in the same way as someone who is sighted. The same for all other customer groups. This can be achieved through running inclusive and mixed ability audience research programmes where the participation of people of all abilities is both sought and welcome.
Final Thoughts
If you are critiquing any brand, including the BBC’s, think about how it functions for people who need special considerations. Brands are functional, technical and emotional, so balance you opinion based on all three aspects.
Seek inclusive customer data. If you are running quant or qual studies ensure that the platform or methodology you are using does not filter out user opinions. 20% of the population have a physical or sensory disability and there are even more with hidden disabilities. So if you are not ensuring the surveys and workshops are inclusive, the data you capture could be inaccurate by more that 20% because of lost opinions, which is not an acceptable margin of error.
Design at the BBC
#accessibility #a11y #branding #inclusion #design
