Digital & IT
Taylor Wilson, Project Manager, b4b: “This app is going to make a real difference to people’s lives."
Published: August 25, 2022 | Updated: 26th August 2022
It’s being hailed as the ‘Tripadvisor for accessibility’ – developed right here in Dorset.
Snowball is set to become the go-to app for disabled users looking for accessible restaurants, shops, and other services.
Paralympians Hannah Cockroft OBE and Aaron Phipps MBE have already given it their equivalent of a gold medal.
The app, developed by Poole-based software agency b4b, is the brainchild of former adult social care worker Simon Sansome.
He became a wheelchair user in 2014 after sustaining a life-changing injury.
The idea for the app came when Simon went out for dinner for the first time since his rehabilitation.
When he arrived, there were people sitting in front of the disabled entrance and getting in caused “quite a fuss”.
During the meal, Simon, pictured left, found that the disabled toilets were only accessible via a flight of stairs.
Before he became a wheelchair user, he says he’d never given accessibility much thought.
The app was born out of his general frustration with how hard it was to find information about venue accessibility.
Simon said: “Short of looking up local guides, which might be out of date. or going on each venue’s website, which is time consuming, it’s not that easy to find out where is accessible in the local area.
“The idea behind Snowball is that all the information is in one easy place and – importantly – is compiled by other disabled users.
“Working in much the same way as Tripadvisor, it gives people a trustworthy source of information about venues that will be able to accommodate their needs.”
Snowball, described as a “rolling review of accessibility”, gives people the confidence to go out and enjoy themselves without worrying about accessibility issues.
Simon, who lives in Leicester, found out about b4b through word of mouth.
After looking through the agency’s previous work, and reading reviews, he approached b4b to see if it could help with his project.
Work started on the app last October and it went live on June 1.
Simon has been a well-respected voice within the disabled community for many years, as the founder of successful blog and Facebook page, Ability Access, as well as being one of the presenters of the Grumpy Gits podcast, described as ‘the world’s most listened to disability podcast’.
Initially, the app was also set to be called Ability Access, but Simon wanted the two to be completely separate entities.
He said: “I wanted something completely random that people would remember, as seems to be the naming convention for apps nowadays.
“But the name is also meaningful, as it will have a snowball effect – once people start getting involved and sharing their experiences it will grow bigger and bigger.”
Taylor Wilson, Project Manager at b4b, said: “I led the build of the app from start to finish and it’s been a career highlight for sure.
“This app is going to make a real difference to people’s lives, and Simon has been fantastic to work with.
“We spent hours bouncing ideas around and discussing how the app would look and work.
“When we sent him the finished prototype he called me back within minutes to say he loved it!”
During the design process, it was also important to consider the accessibility of the app itself.
Taylor said: “Our UX [user experience] designer researched fonts to find the one that has consistently been named the easiest to read.
“We also limited the use of red and green for users who may have colour blindness.”
Making sure the app was user-friendly was an ongoing and collaborative process between Simon and the developers, and involved plenty of testing.
The end result, say b4b, is not only clean and easy to navigate, but also features a whole host of useful functionality.
Similar to Tripadvisor, users can:
Paralympians Hannah Cockroft OBE and Aaron Phipps MBE, pictured with Simon, have hailed the app as a “long time coming”.
Hannah said: “I am repeatedly told that disability access in the UK has improved out of sight.
“While things are getting better, they are still not accessible.
“Snowball will change the everyday lives of many disabled people.
“We will no longer have to turn up and pray we can get in, do hours of online research just to find out if we will be able to enter, or phone up and be told a venue is accessible, when it really isn’t.
“Snowball will give people back their time, freedom and independence and create an accessible space for all.”
Aaron said: “Many times when I’m out with friends and family I’ve had to hop out of my chair and hobble around on my bum to get into places.
“Snowball will give me an accessible world.
“I won’t have to worry about going out anymore with friends and family because we will all know where we can access thanks to the app.”
After a focus group researched venues in Loughborough and recorded their findings in the app – an activity which Simon has dubbed “snowballing” – it was found that just under half of places in the town – 48 per cent – were marked as inaccessible, with people “unlikely to return”.
Community groups and local councils are going to start snowballing other areas, and Simon says he hopes the findings will prompt positive change.
He said: “It’s unbelievable to me that nearly half of the places we reviewed in our focus town are unable to accommodate disabled visitors.
“Hopefully we can shine a light on accessibility and bring about change for good.”
