Testimonials
Feedback from people I’ve worked with, and from audiences at talks and workshops.
General testimonials
I was privileged to work with Craig for several years in Government. His knowledge and passion for accessibility has taught me so much. He’s the voice I trust most within the accessibility world because I’ve seen how deeply he engages with it.
Craig can explain difficult things in a way that don’t make me yawn. Even more, his talks make me think! That’s quite a lot. Respect.
Craig has become one of the people I trust most for accessibility insight and advice. His ability to take complex technical topics, evolving regulations and accessibility best practice and explain them in a way that’s clear, practical and easy to understand is exceptional, and he’s always incredibly generous with his time and knowledge.
I consider Craig to be a great friend and genuine thought leader in the accessibility space. Having Craig on the The Digital Accessibility Podcast was a huge highlight for me. His episode was extremely well received and grew our audience.
Craig is one of those designers who knows a lot about a lot, with specialist and deep knowledge of accessibility. He’s one of the few people I’ll ask to review my ideas when I have doubts, because I know that he just completely gets it from a holistic point of view. If you ever get the chance to work with Craig, jump at it. I would!
Craig’s articles were an invaluable resource for me in the lead up to the European Accessibility Act. He is brilliant at explaining complex legislation and accessibility guidance in a way that’s practical and easy to apply.
Craig’s constant contributions towards the accessibility profession have directly influenced my own approach to the work, especially around strategy. His influence is weaved throughout the various organisations I’ve worked at, and his work is uniquely scalable, sustainable and understandable, for people at all levels in profession. He’s been a reliable friend and mentor, and I value his input on knotty problems immensely!
Seeing Craig talk back in 2018 inspired me to shift my focus to accessibility. Even now, I frequently reference his talks, and as soon as we set up A11y North he was the first person I thought of to invite to speak.
Craig has made a massive contribution to digital accessibility, and we wouldn’t have seen the progress we have over the last decade if it wasn’t for people like him championing the needs of disabled people with determination and passion.
Craig invests a lot of himself in the areas that interest him the most. He doesn’t suffer from surface-level thinking, he digs deep to acutely understand every possible thing he can. He speaks, you listen. Craig is someone you want in your org and team, any day of the week.
Craig is one of those rare design leaders who effortlessly links high level strategy with real human impact. Working with him at Elastic, I saw firsthand how he tackles complex design problems with steady calm and total clarity. His expertise in accessibility goes way beyond technical compliance, because he changes entire team cultures toward truly inclusive design.
Talk feedback
I really enjoyed Craig’s talk at Access:Given. He took what could have been a very dry topic and turned it into an engaging, insightful session, with great takeaways on accessibility and LLMs.
Craig Abbott with a talk on LLMs and accessibility, where I nodded like a Churchill dog. My own opinion on this has always been that without empathy AI will never truly be accessible or inclusive and Craig really nailed all of the technical challenges that it faces.
Insane takes by Craig Abbott, all backed by tests and data around AI effectiveness and cost on basic accessibility checks. Highly recommend watching this one when the recording is up from JSHeroes!
Craig’s talk at UX Scotland was typical of him: interesting, based on original research, practical, and fun.
Craig was an exceptional speaker to have at our first Access:Given. He was very tolerant and patient with our teething problems, and was ever-professional.
He delivered a completely engaging talk, with slides that were readable from the back of the room. He kept to the time allocated to him, and was really, really easy to deal with before, during and after.
Both Ellen and I are more than happy to vouch for him and would easily work with him again.
The best “I used AI for X” talks tend to be of the “warts and all” kind, with real detail about actual examples and tooling, rather than just thoughts and promises, and Craig’s was certainly in the former category.
It was great to have Craig come and speak to the whole design team at Valtech. His talk was full of practical examples that really made an impact on our output. It was enthusiastically received by the team!
Thank you for your amazing presentation at Axe-con on “Designing for Neurodiversity.” As an educator and researcher who collaborates and works with folks who are neurodivergent, your talk was especially helpful in navigating spaces that are systematically biased.
I was at the Accessibility Scotland conference on Friday. Your talk was incredible! It was my highlight of the day. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and knowledge, I learnt a lot!
I really enjoyed your talk at Accessibility Scotland! It was great to learn more about how we can improve beyond WCAG.
Thank you for talking to us at IBCA (Infected Blood Compensation Authority)! It was such an incredible session and your talk has ignited so much fabulous conversation across our Slack channels!
The talk not only created engagement and further conversation with our digital colleagues but also our operational colleagues who are less aware of accessibility within digital services.