From print to digital: solving the accessibility issue of utility bills

ABC News recently reported on the issue of inaccessible electricity bills.

The article discusses the challenges faced by thousands of Australians, particularly individuals with vision impairments, in accessing legible electricity bills. This is primarily due to the incompatibility of the bills' format (PDFs) with screen reader software.

The article referenced the Better Bills Guidelines of the Australian Energy Regulator.

I have reviewed these guidelines, and the research on which they were based was very thorough.

The resulting recommendations include an uncluttered design, a consistent layout, colour contrast, grouped information, and accessibility for screen readers. These are the same recommendations I would make. On the whole, they are a positive and sensible step forward.

One key recommendation that I think is missing, however, is the consideration of file format.

The right format for the right use case

In an age of digital-first, we need to rethink the formats we use to distribute information and select the appropriate format for each use case. In a society moving towards a paperless environment, we are still clinging to a format that is no longer suitable.

Currently, most bills are in PDF format. An acronym for Portable Document Format, PDFs preserve the layout regardless of the platform, making them ideal for documents intended for print.

Print was the original bill format, and it was suitable for the use case at the time, which involved mailing bills to customers through the postal system.

When the demand for paperless solutions grew, PDF was adopted as the preferred format. It was suitable for the business use case because it provided a convenient way to digitally distribute documents without requiring a complete overhaul of the existing business processes. While it was suitable for business purposes, it started to stray from being the optimal format for meeting the customer's needs.

PDF: a relic of the past

PDFs are not effective in terms of accessibility. Making them accessible can be a complex task. Getting it right is not easy, and sometimes it is impossible. For businesses, it can be challenging to make PDFs accessible, while for customers, it can be difficult or impossible to access them.

Print served us well for hundreds of years but has been surpassed by newer digital technologies. Where we are now is a mid-point. We are digital but cling to the look of analog. This results in designing for the old way (print) but distributing it in the new way (PDF). This kind of design is called skeuomorphism - the design concept of making represented items resemble their real-world counterparts. Many early analog-to-digital conversions utilised skeuomorphism during their initial stages. The iOS operating system serves as a prime example.

Accessible and digital-first

iOS moved on from relying on skeuomorphic design concepts like imitating writing notes on a paper-like background and displaying books on a wooden-like bookshelf, and bills must do the same.

This means using formats that are adaptable, responsive, accessible, and multi-platform, such as HTML. The backbone of websites, HTML is highly effective in terms of accessibility and usability, and it also performs reasonably well in terms of layout.

If utility companies truly want to prioritise their customers, they need to focus on meeting their needs. 18% of Australians have a disability, myself included. Our needs have been overlooked for far too long, 

My message to utility companies is this: you need to adapt and evolve your offerings to be in the format that works best for the customer. People with disabilities are your customers.

Evolve your mindsets to move beyond the analogy of print and choose accessible formats that are suitable for our new use cases. Prioritise digital, prioritise customers, prioritise accessibility.

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