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UEL based Rix Centre helps people with learning disabilities to transform their lives with Click Start

Monday 27 October 2008

Thousands of people with learning disabilities, their carers and families will be able to use innovatively designed accessible Web sites in 2009 to transform their lives as a result of a new project, Click Start, which kicks off this week.

The University of East London-based Rix Centre - the R&D centre developing multimedia for the learning disabilities community, will play a central role in this £192,000 European Social funded project through the Learning and Skills Council.

The Rix Centre will build version 2 of its innovative ‘Easy Build’ Website Templates and train representatives in nine East London Boroughs on how to use it. One key feature of version 2 of the Easy Build websites will be a template for local authority services such as swimming pools to quickly build a web page easily accessible for people with learning disabilities giving details of their services.

The nine London Boroughs will be able to help local groups supporting the learning disability community to easily build their own Web sites, which will also feed into a special highly accessible ‘easy-read’ web portal for each borough. Research suggests that at least 17% of all families in these boroughs are affected by learning disabilities.

Andy Minnion, director of the Rix Centre, says: “A key part of of the Rix Centre's approach is to involve people with learning disabilities in the design, creation, assessment and running of these sites. People with learning disabilities often have difficulties with, among other things, reading text and manipulating conventional multimedia interfaces with mice and keyboards. Easy Build overcomes these problems with built-in accessibility.

“Making Web sites accessible for people with learning disabilities by involving those people in their creation also helps develop a community of common interest and links together the various agencies that are there to support them in their daily lives. People with learning disabilities change their role from being simply ‘recipients’ of services to being active participants, creators, advocates and advisors."

Helping the vital transition to adulthood and independence is a key aim of Easy Build. Each Borough’s portal and Web sites will aim to help people with learning disabilities with their transition to independence and adult life in the community. In this vital transition people with learning disabilities need to have a voice so that they can be listened to; need to have help in personalising their services and need assistance to direct their own care and support.

Helpful features for Easy Build include navigation for easy access - Easy Build helps creators develop and publish multimedia Web content so that those with learning disabilities can access vital information which can transform their lives. Two hundred people with learning disabilities in Newham Borough alone have already used Easy Build version 1 to develop their own sites of local and generic information.

In the year the Newham Easy Read portal has been running, 30 groups in the borough have created easy access web sites for people with learning disabilities using the Rix Easy Build Web Site Templates. In its first year of operations newhameasyread.org had 245,679 hits accessing 6,231,185 kilobytes of information and now provides a portal to 40 other sites built with Easy Build.

The roll out of Click Start in January to March 2009 will be based on the pioneering work the Rix Centre has already done with Newham Borough Council to build the Newham Easy Read transitional portal www.newhameasyread.org.

Notes to Editors

The University of East London (UEL) is a global learning community with over 28,000 students from over 120 countries world-wide. Our vision is to achieve recognition, both nationally and internationally, as a successful and inclusive regional university proud of its diversity, committed to new modes of learning which focus on students and enhance their employability, and renowned for our contribution to social, cultural and economic development, especially through our research and scholarship. We have a strong track-record in widening participation and working with industry.

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