New site touted as Yelp for disabled people

New Australian site will let users with disabilities rate services based on how good they are for the disabled.

While it’s easy to get customer reviews for cafes, restaurants and plumbers, it’s not so easy to find reviews of services that help those with disabilities. And so arrives Clickability. Originally founded in 2014 by Aviva Beecher Kelk and Jenna Moffat, two Australian women with backgrounds in social, disability and mental health care, the idea was to give users with disabilities much better access to care and services and a wider, more informed choice based on user reviews. So an online directory, like Yelp, but for people who are disabled.

Anyone offering services can add themselves onto the directory free of charge, but if they choose to subscribe they’ll have much more control over their presence, such as personalising their page and responding to comments made.

The site’s broken into categories, including Home Help, Carer Support, Car Modifications, Home Modifications and Activities and Fun Stuff (among many others). Aviva Beecher Kelk explained: “In this industry, that’s a gap in human rights as well, because we’re not talking about ‘I won’t go back to that restaurant’, we’re talking about ‘I won’t be able to get up in the mornings.’”

It’s now spread over two Australian states – Victoria and New South Wales – but the plan is to go nationwide. The service is also looking at how to make it easier to use for users with limited vision, and it’s exploring ideas on how to develop it for customers with intellectual disabilities. It’s encouraging to see so many innovations being made to help disabled people, such as the SafariSeat wheelchair and the Adaptive Toy Project. Could something like Clickability one day go completely global?