The preparation phase of the project will incorporate a literature review of recent research and developments in: accessible web design; web technologies and disability, especially cognitive disabilities; new media design and creative practices. It will also include a detailed analysis of the latest accessibility guidelines and practices and the production of a defining document which will form the basis of our workshops, bringing together core guidelines from W3C WAI with Project @pple guidelines for cognitive disability.

The implementation phase will incorporate two approaches. The first is a series of consultative focus groups run as workshops with approximately 30 new media designers. Participants will have a spectrum of accessibility experience (many will have none) and will work on websites aimed at a general audience (sites about events or services, or corporate sites with a public accountability agenda). They will be UK-based and will be recruited from existing networks, targeted sites and designer/developer conferences and discussion groups. In exchange for their participation, they will receive free training and consultancy. The workshops, which will be audio-recorded, have four purposes: to pass on information about accessibility guidelines, to inspire designers with exemplary accessible design, to problem-solve and to introduce designers to disabled users. These practical sessions will promote collaboration in the creation of accessible new media solutions across technical and creative design practices. The first workshop will focus on accessibility in general; the second on the accessibility needs of the cognitively disabled. The latter two workshops will introduce designers to disabled users (drawn from Rix Centre networks), who will carry out developmental testing on sites on which designers are currently working (which may or may not attempt to adhere to accessibility standards). The user-testing sessions will be video-recorded. User testing will provide information about the accessibility of sites, as well as revealing the extent to which strict adherence to guidelines is necessary to make a site work for disabled users. The main aim of user testing is to explore the impact on production of integrating users into design processes. This method conforms to the 'nothing about us without us' ethos of the cognitive disability self-advocacy movement.

The second approach is observation. Each workshop will be followed by participant observation sessions in the workplaces of designer participants. In these sessions, websites currently being designed by participants will be discussed, as will: the extent to which accessibility guidelines are being adopted by research participants; particular accessible design challenges, such as dynamic content; and the impact on the design process of viewing exemplary accessible design, working with disabled users and of different clients. These methods serve to 'get at' design practice, through discussions of practices with designers themselves and through analyses of the products of these practices, their websites.