General Blog Posts

Our contingency plans have been activated to deal with the Coronavirus outbreak. Response times may be affected as noted below: Our main office is closed until June 2020 and staff are working remotely based on government advice Phones have been routed to a 24x7 answering service Some support issues requiring specific software or hardware may take longer to diagnose

The winter festival has just finished in Edinburgh. For 6 weeks, from the start of December to the start of January, the city centre streets come alive day and night with: Outdoor skating in Princes Street Gardens (photo below) Christmas markets with plenty of tasty food and Glühwein Ferris wheel, helter-skelter and other rides The Hogmanay street party - about 80,000 people crowd into Princes Street to celebrate New Year and watch the annual fireworks display Our office is just round the corner from the Christmas Market, so our usual lunch stops have been dropped in favor of a stall selling Bratkartoffeln (German sautéed potatoes).

We've just moved to new offices in Edinburgh in the rather stunning St Andrew Square. We spent a long time choosing offices since they had to match quite strict sustainability criteria: Easy access to public transport (the train station is 3 minutes walk, the bus station is the other side of the square, and the new tram system will run through the square) Accessible to wheelchair and low vision users (quite hard to find in Edinburgh which is full of very old buildings that are hard to make accessible) Energy efficient with recycling facilities (the office has recycling bins everywhere, with special bins for toner cartridges which go to a recycling charity) Plenty of space for future expansion The new offices fit the bill perfectly, with the bonus of a great view across to Edinburgh Castle.

I had the privilege of visiting the Shaw Trust's accessibility testing center recently. The Shaw Trust is a UK charity which supports disabled and disadvantaged people prepare for work, find jobs and live more independently. As part of their work they provide accessibility testing services to a range of organizations worldwide. Their accessibility testing team employs people with a range of disabilities, using different assistive technologies. This means their testing is very thorough and sets a gold standard for the rest of the accessibility community.