“Accessible” is one of the most over-used words in web design and one of the least often earned. On a public health site it isn’t a badge — it’s the difference between someone finding the help they came for and giving up. Our latest build for Devon County Council, the new Smokefree Devon Alliance site, was designed around that test from the first wireframe.
Smokefree Devon brings together stop-smoking support across Devon, Plymouth and Torbay, and it serves two very different audiences at once: people thinking about quitting, and the health professionals who support them. Both have to find what they need quickly, on whatever device they happen to be holding.
What accessible actually means
Accessibility on a project like this isn’t a plugin you switch on at the end. It’s colour contrast that works for low vision, a structure that makes sense to a screen reader, text that resizes without the layout collapsing, and content written in plain language rather than clinical jargon. We designed and tested against those requirements throughout the build rather than bolting them on before launch.
The result is a site that meets WCAG 2.1 AA and, more to the point, is genuinely easy to use for the people who need the information most.
A brand that carries public health without lecturing
Health messaging can slide into either the clinical or the preachy. Neither helps. The site’s look — warm, calm, approachable — was chosen to make support feel available rather than judgemental. The tone does a lot of quiet work here: someone thinking about quitting should feel invited in, not told off.
The measure of a public health site isn’t how it looks in a portfolio. It’s whether the person who needs it can find what they came for, on the first try, on whatever device they have.
Built current, built to last
Under the surface it’s a modern WordPress build, editable by the council’s own team without touching code and without any risk of breaking the layout. It’ll take content updates for years without needing a rebuild — which, for a public-sector budget, is the whole point.
We’ve built for Devon County Council, Cornwall Council, the Duchy of Cornwall and the Met Office over twenty-five years. Smokefree Devon is a reminder that the council work isn’t a line on an old CV — it’s what we’re doing right now, to today’s standards.
Velocity Web builds accessible, WCAG 2.1 AA websites for councils and public-sector organisations across the South West.