How the Accessibility features of G Suite helped to benefit Parkinson’s UK

About the company:

Parkinson’s UK is a Parkinson’s research and support charity in the UK. The charity’s aims are to improve the quality of life for people affected by Parkinson’s and find a cure for the condition. It funds research aimed at finding better treatments and improving the understanding of Parkinson’s and its causes. 

The charity offers support and information to people affected by Parkinson’s, this includes families, friends, and carers.

The problem:

Parkinson’s UK also employs people who are diagnosed with Parkinson’s, as well as others who have learning and physical difficulties which may make day-to-day work more challenging. 

Parkinson’s UK had 500 members of staff across the UK in 3 different office locations plus home and remote workers. The teams were divided, with approximately 40% being office-based and on-premise, and the other 60% being remote workers working from home.

The solution:

This year, Parkinson’s UK decided to deploy G Suite with the help of Netpremacy. 

Their mission was to better equip their workforce with collaborative tools to improve efficiency and enhance communication between colleagues, including between office and remote workers. A key reason for implementing G Suite was the accessibility features that G Suite provided, making it easier for some of the team at Parkinson’s UK to work effectively. 

Some of the tools that the team benefited from were; Voice typing within Google Docs and Slides, Select to Speak, Chromevox and enabling High Contrast mode to help prevent eye strain, headaches, and migraines due to glare. 

G Suite can be personalised to suit the needs of the individual, especially Gmail. This became especially useful when introducing people with Parkinson’s to the applications. People experiencing involuntary movements in the hands may accidentally click when using a mouse. To minimise issues caused by this we were able to turn off hover actions, helping to reduce the risk of accidentally deleting or actioning emails.

Why Netpremacy:

Working with Netpremacy has ensured that effective Change Management and Training was delivered to Parkinson’s UK to enable successful adoption of G Suite, in particular, in-depth and advanced training on the accessibility features. 

Netpremacy’s Trainers spent time on-site providing classroom-based training sessions, remote sessions for those harder to reach, and individual support before, during and after the deployment of G Suite. 

Through this continuous support, Netpremacy’s Trainers were able to help individuals who have Parkinson’s, learning difficulties, visual and hearing difficulties to discover more about the accessibility features available through G Suite, Google Chrome and Chrome devices.

Netpremacy’s dedicated training team helped us get up to speed on how to use G suite but also ensured we made the most of all the excellent accessibility options that G Suite has. This has enabled our teams to continue to work effectively whilst providing for specific learning or physical needs.

– Shaun Le Geyt, Parkinson’s UK

These features have seen people who may usually struggle with working on computers grow in confidence; as well as work better with their teams to save time and help others who are affected with similar conditions too. 

Implementing G Suite meant that the teams at Parkinson’s UK were able to work in a more collaborative environment, no matter their visual, hearing or physical difficulties which brought accessibility to the workplace. 

Click here to find out more about the accessibility features that have helped people at Parkinson’s UK. 

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