The AIC was formed in 2022 and is a group of market research and user experience professionals working to make consumer research more accessible for the entire population.

The agreement between the two groups came about as the AIC shares the IDEA Council’s goal of providing information and resources for insights professionals interested in designing, implementing and reporting research inclusive of people with disabilities, and in accord with universal design principles.

IDEA Council member and AIC lead Claire Ferrari, principal accessible UX researcher and senior manager at Verizon, said: “From the outset, the goal of the AIC has been to improve accessibility to research for all people. With the network and resources of the Insights Association IDEA Council, our work will reach a much broader audience and have more impact.

“Not only will we have a deeper bench of experts helping us in our research, but we will also be able to have the findings and best practices activated more widely at market research agencies and corporate departments across an array of industries.”

Melanie Courtright, chief executive officer at the Insights Association, said: “The work done by the AIC has been extraordinary and they have been superb in their efforts to educate our profession with practical ways to make research more accessible.”

“We already feel like the AIC is part of the IA and IDEA Council team,” added Shannon Danzy, senior director of research strategy at the Insights Association.

“We’re excited to formalise the combination of our efforts and together continue our research and finalisation of a toolkit which we feel will be immensely valuable to practitioners in our profession.”