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Good practice Imported

DigitalService's Accessibility Ambassadors — Embedding Empathy Tools into Germany's Federal Digital Services

Germany · Berlin · See the Germany profile · See the Berlin profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 68% 56/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Germany's federal DigitalService trains every designer, engineer and product manager in accessibility from onboarding, using a 'How many people?' prevalence tool, a dyslexia/impairment-simulating browser extension and 90-minute 'Pizza-Powered Accessibility Check' workshops.

10 million
People in Germany who are hearing-impaired or hard of hearing
DigitalService's Accessibility Ambassadors — Embedding Empathy Tools into Germany's Federal Digital Services DigitalService's Accessibility Ambassadors — Embedding Empathy Tools into Germany's Federal Digital Services

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
DigitalService GmbH des Bundes
Period
2024–present
Keywords
digital government, accessibility, workforce capability, co-design

Context

Germany's federal DigitalService requires accessibility training for every new hire - across design, product, engineering and research - from their first days on the job.

Activities

It built a 'How many people?' prevalence tool, an 'Accessibility Personas' browser extension that simulates impairments during testing, and 90-minute 'Pizza-Powered Accessibility Check' workshops, sustained by an internal Accessibility Ambassadors group.

Results

DigitalService cites 10 million people in Germany who are hearing-impaired or hard of hearing as a rationale for building accessibility in from the start.

Conclusions

The evidence here is organisational and methodological rather than an impact study; no independently audited change in accessibility scores was found.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
Accessibility Ambassadors employee resource group, designers, engineers, product managers, researchers

Conditions for success

  • accessibility training embedded from onboarding for every hire

Common failure modes

  • no independently audited outcome evaluation of accessibility score changes

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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