Creating more neuroinclusive digital environments
- vic
- May 21
- 2 min read
At GAIN, we believe neurodivergent people should be able to thrive confidently within professional environments without constantly needing to adapt themselves simply to participate comfortably.
Yet for many neurodivergent professionals, digital environments can still create unnecessary barriers through information overload, inaccessible systems, overwhelming layouts and workplace environments that quietly demand constant cognitive adjustment.
In high-pressure sectors particularly, people can end up spending significant energy navigating systems rather than being able to focus on their strengths, ideas and contributions.
Increasingly, accessibility is not simply about physical environments or formal adjustments processes. It is also about whether digital spaces allow people to engage comfortably, process information confidently and participate without unnecessary friction.
As part of our wider commitment to neuroinclusion, GAIN has implemented the Calling All Minds AXS Toolbar across our website.
What appealed to us about the AXS Toolbar was that it offered a practical and achievable way to support accessibility and inclusion while recognising that many people experience and process information differently.
The toolbar allows people to personalise how they engage with online information through features including text to speech, font customisation, colour overlays, reading support tools and focus support features.
Sometimes relatively small accessibility adjustments can make a meaningful difference to whether people feel confident engaging with information and environments professionally.
We've been looking for a solution to improving our website accessibility at GAIN since our inception. Accessibility is vital to ensure everyone who might have need of our services is able to use them, but website design tools are often very basic in terms of what they offer.
The AXS Toolbar provides the major thing lacking from other approaches we've explored, in that it is flexible and adaptable. It allows each user to customise their experience to their needs, and I've been impressed with how easy it's been to match our brand colours, and to install it on our site.
We're in the middle of an exciting new chapter at GAIN as I'm in the process of rebuilding our member hub and database using a new, more efficient system, and it's a huge reassurance to know we'll be launching with accessibility built in.
-Vic Mazonas, GAINTogether CIC
Too many neurodivergent professionals are still spending energy navigating environments rather than being able to focus on their strengths. Real inclusion is not just feeling safe enough to ask for support — it’s creating environments where sometimes you don’t need to ask because accessibility is already there.
— Atif Choudhury, Calling All Minds
We talk a lot about inclusion.
But inclusion that cannot be accessed, is not inclusion.
As part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Calling All Minds is inviting organisations to take a practical first step by exploring the free AXS Accessibility Audit.
The audit helps organisations better understand how accessible and cognitively inclusive their digital environments currently are — and where small changes may help reduce overwhelm and improve participation.
Explore the free AXS Accessibility Audit here:
Because accessibility should not rely on people constantly having to explain what they need.
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