About Dean Frank Reynolds
Accessibility consultant and disability coach in the North East. A wheelchair user, profoundly deaf, autistic and ADHD, which is where the method comes from.
I'm Dean Frank Reynolds. I'm an accessibility consultant and disability coach, based in Newcastle and working across the North East.
I'm a full-time wheelchair user, profoundly deaf, autistic and ADHD. That's where the method comes from. I've been meeting access barriers from the inside my whole life, and that's what I bring into someone's building or onto their website.
Disabled people aren't broken, the environment is. Disability is neutral, about as boring as whether you prefer white bread, and I reject the positive spin on it as hard as I reject the tragedy one.
What I do
I audit buildings and I audit websites. The framework is Six Sides, and it's mine. I built it. Six domains of access, always taken in the same order. Physical, Visual, Auditory, Cognitive, Emotional, Cultural.
Most organisations have thought hard about the first one and barely at all about the other five. That isn't a failing, it's what the sector trained everyone to do. The job is making the other five visible, in a way that feels safe to face and possible to fix.
It's priced as a ladder so there's a rung for whatever you can actually spend:
- A 45 minute access clinic, with the first 20 minutes free.
- A deep dive into one or two of the six domains.
- A Digital Access Review for websites, apps and services.
- A full Six Sides Audit, all six domains across the whole building.
- A design-stage review, for drawings before anything gets built.
What I'm aiming at is Regenerative Access. The difference between an accessible building and a regeneratively accessible one is that it was thought of before you experienced it. You know you're welcome in the building and you don't have to fight for it.
What's on here
The writing section is in two halves. The current pieces work through the standards that actually get cited in a building: Part M, Part T, PAS 6463, personal emergency evacuation plans, hearing loops and the Accessible Information Standard. Each one works from the published document rather than from somebody's summary of it, and the documents that are free to read are linked so you can check me.
Underneath them is an archive from 2020 to 2022, brought across from the old site so it didn't vanish with it. It covers spoon theory, website accessibility, deafness, ADHD and digital access, an office audit, podcast transcripts, retail and hospitality, Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and the public sector.
One of them is Ellen's rather than mine, and carries her byline.
They're tagged Archive and dated. Some of it I'd write differently now, and I've left it as it was rather than quietly updating myself.
The practical details
I'm self-employed and work freelance, under my own name. Not a limited company, and not VAT registered, so there's no VAT on anything I invoice.
I've been doing this for five years. I'm insured, and I'll send the certificate over with a proposal or earlier if your process needs it.
You can also find me on LinkedIn.
Getting hold of me
Email is the best route, at dean@deanfrankreynolds.co.uk. A video call works too, with live captions running.
I don't take phone calls. I'm profoundly deaf, so a phone conversation isn't something I can do accurately.