Where CollectivAlly fits

Accessibility is not solved by a single tool, standard or research method. It requires different forms of expertise at different stages of the design process.

CollectivAlly was created to play one specific role within that wider ecosystem: helping teams think about accessibility earlier, challenge assumptions and prepare for better conversations with real people.

Many of the questions we’ve received have centred around the role AI should play in accessibility. We believe those are important questions to ask.

CollectivAlly was never created to replace people or simplify accessibility into a checklist. It was designed to help organisations start thinking about accessibility earlier, challenge assumptions and build stronger foundations while preparing for meaningful research with disabled people.

So, here’s what CollectivAlly is not.

It is not a simulation of disability

CollectivAlly does not attempt to simulate disability or recreate the lived experience of disabled people.

Lived experience is deeply personal. It is shaped by far more than an impairment or diagnosis. It is influenced by identity, environment, culture, confidence, technology, previous experiences and countless other factors that cannot be fully represented by an AI persona.

Instead, CollectivAlly is built around the Functional Performance Criteria that underpin the European Accessibility Act (EAA). These criteria focus on the functional outcomes that products and services should support for people with different sensory, physical, cognitive and communication needs.

Using this framework, together with insights gathered through years of inclusive research, we’ve created research-informed archetypes, which we call personas, to help teams consider how different functional needs might affect someone’s experience of a digital service.

The purpose is to challenge assumptions, broaden perspectives and encourage better questions. It is not to speak on behalf of disabled people or replicate their lived experience.

It is not a replacement for research with real people

There is no substitute for research with disabled people.

Every person’s lived experience is unique. Disability is diverse, intersectional and highly contextual. The richest insights will always come from listening to real people, understanding their goals and learning from their experiences.

CollectivAlly has been designed to bridge the gap that exists before many organisations undertake inclusive research. It encourages teams to think beyond their own mental models, identify potential barriers earlier and ask better questions throughout the design process.

Our ambition is that organisations who use CollectivAlly will arrive at user research better prepared, ask more thoughtful questions and gain even greater value from the conversations they have with disabled participants. The platform is designed to encourage organisations to involve real people at the moments where lived experience delivers the greatest insight.

It is not a replacement for disabled expertise

Accessible organisations are built by diverse teams.

Disabled people bring perspectives, creativity and expertise that cannot be replicated through technology. Their voices belong throughout organisations, from leadership and strategy through to design, research, development and testing.

CollectivAlly has never been intended to replace that expertise.

Our hope is that by helping more organisations understand accessibility and recognise the value of inclusive design, they will invest more in disability inclusion, create stronger relationships with disabled communities and build teams that better reflect the people they serve.

Technology should create more opportunities for disabled people to influence products and services, not fewer.

It is not a compliance tool

CollectivAlly deliberately avoids reducing accessibility to a score, percentage or green tick.

Accessibility is fundamentally about people, not passing a test.

The platform draws on the Functional Performance Criteria that underpin the EAA because they provide an established framework for understanding the functional outcomes products and services should support for people with different sensory, physical, cognitive and communication needs.

Rather than producing a compliance score, CollectivAlly uses those principles to challenge assumptions, encourage critical thinking and prompt teams to consider how people with different functional needs might experience a digital service.

Compliance remains important, but it should be viewed as the minimum standard rather than the end goal. A product can satisfy technical requirements and still leave people frustrated, excluded or unable to achieve what they came to do.

CollectivAlly exists to help teams think beyond compliance and focus on creating genuinely inclusive experiences.

The role we believe CollectivAlly should play

We see CollectivAlly as one part of a much bigger accessibility ecosystem.

Alongside accessibility standards, automated testing, manual auditing, disabled colleagues, lived experience, inclusive research and continuous learning, we believe it can help organisations start asking better questions much earlier in the design process.

If CollectivAlly encourages one more organisation to think about accessibility at the beginning of a project instead of the end, ask better questions of its users, create more opportunities for disabled people to shape products and services or invest in inclusive research, then it has achieved exactly what it was designed to do.

The best digital experiences are created by combining different perspectives, different tools and, above all, real human insight.