Benefits to Be. Accessible from using Brilliant Assessments

As told by Megan Barclay – Be. Accessible Programme Director

• The assessments are very thorough and can be continuously improved, delivering increased guidance to both the business (on how they rate and how they can improve) and our website visitors
• Assessors find the system very easy to use and highly efficient
• The reports to the business are produced automatically and make it easy for the assessor to produce a very detailed narrative, using our brand standards
• The report can be produced in word or straight to PDF.  The word version offers the assessor the flexibility to make minor adjustments, however the goal is to make the feedback generated by the system cover all circumstances, saving time and ensuring consistency
• The website content is also generated automatically to reflect the accessibility features of the business.  The content is updated with any changes that are made to any assessment
• The website content is delivered via API, allowing us to partner with tourism to provide accessibility information, delivering more value to our business customers, and also making accessibility data more ubiquitous
• Our database and the in-built graphical reporting allows us to measure the continuous improvement of New Zealand businesses in being more accessible.

More information about Be. Accessible

Imagine a world where every person, building and community is truly accessible.  That world is what Be. Accessible has set out to create.

• Be. Accessible is a social-change initiative and a holistic framework for accessibility with a mission to create a truly accessible country for us all.
• Be. Accessible is managed by the Be. Institute, a social enterprise that aims to work across all sectors and communities throughout New Zealand. The belief is that every person has their part to play in the creation of accessibility regardless of how big or small the change.
• Be. Accessible provides a website, where their assessed business can be searched for and full details of the accessibility features displayed.  They will soon also drive the accessibility assessment on other tourism-related websites.

How does Be. Accessible use Brilliant Assessments Software?

Be. Accessible uses the Brilliant Assessments tool to offer assessments of the business as a pay-for service.  Assessors visit businesses and work through the online assessment, talking to business managers and doing a physical appraisal.

The survey is extremely comprehensive, it comprises of over 800 questions that are divided into 4 sections, and there are a total of 44 sub-sections.  Most of the answers are multi-choice, so that the assessor can work through them very quickly, but there are some text answer types too. Because there are many types of business and each one has a unique combination of facilities, questions in a subsection only appear for the assessor to reply to when they indicate that that subsection is relevant to this business.

Each selected answer is input to an algorithm to give the business a grading for each section.  Questions are also cross-referenced as to their relevance to different accessibility needs (e.g. mobility, vision, hearing) so that a more definitive rating is available to each impairment group.

The system then generates a comprehensive report – advising the business on where it stands from an accessibility perspective, and provides advice on how it can improve accessibility and its rating.

Just as importantly the system generates website content that is available via an application program interface (API), which make all of our ratings and a full description of the accessibility features of each business available via a very flexible searchable interface.  Authorised third-party websites can also access this content via the API to improve their information with accessibility ratings and detailed information.

Megan Barclay, Be. Accessible Programme Director, continues: “We have total control over every aspect of the assessment within the software – the questions, the answers, the feedback, the ratings, everything.  Using the analysis section we can report to our stakeholders on how well the Be. Accessible goals are being met, and how that is improving over time.”

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