Digital accessibility of Gem at municipalities
With Gem we want to help all residents well. That is why we are working on a digitally accessible version of Gem. We are testing with a user panel to improve the user experience further. Last week we shared insights from those tests. In the meantime we have also started rolling Gem out at the first municipality. That too is producing valuable points for improvement, which we are picking up.
Points for improvement from the first roll-out
Last week we gathered a list of small and larger points for improvement, such as:
- Support for buttons. Gem can now display and use more interactive buttons. This has been tested successfully.
- Accessible images and QR codes. We are looking into how images, such as QR codes, can be offered accessibly, for example through an additional hyperlink.
- Improvements to the technical integration with Gem. We are working on a smoother connection between Gem's software and the municipalities' other software.
- Fixing display problems where welcome texts or answers were sometimes not fully visible.
- Improving consistency across the different views you can have.
- More scope for municipalities to adapt Gem to their own house style, such as colours and logos.
Cake for a certificate!
Offering Gem on a website in a digitally accessible way requires technical changes, testing and ultimately certification. That takes effort from municipalities and suppliers.
So the first three municipalities to take their Gem live successfully — digitally accessible and certified — get treated to a large cake.
Not only because they are the first, but above all because they show that inclusive public services are possible in practice.