Working Draft: Implementation Plan for Web Accessibility

From Education & Outreach

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This resource has moved into Github to allow for a better presentation of how it will finally look on publication.

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Notes for Phase 2

This contains material that is related to the section or topic but not closely enough to be part of it. These are noted here for consideration in later phases.

General

  • Consider inviting Case Study submissions. Case studies would be a significant addition to the resources.

Establish Roles and Responsibilities

Key Actions

  • Ensure that successes are communicated throughout the organization, and that knowledge is shared between the responsible parties. - Needs to be in a communication section
  • Put in place systems to capture and manage identified issues, possibly across projects. - Needs to be in a communication section

Discussion

One of the key responsibilities is to track and communicate the progress of the project. For single websites this may be as simple as maintaining a list of identified accessibility issues as part of the broader QA issue tracking activities. For larger projects or where the goal includes an element of organizational change there is a need for broader communication and coordination. - Needs to be in a communication section

Accessible Outsourcing

Discussion on procurement policy:

Your accessibility policy could be incorporated into any purchasing process or into the contract with the supplier.

Your supplier will take on the various functions required to deliver an accessible solution. This will depend on what they are tasked to deliver. For example, if they are to provide content strategy and assets, then they must ensure that the strategy provides guidance on writing accessible web content and that assets provided adequately conform to this guidance. - discussion on outsourcing issues

You also need to be clear with your supplier what acceptance testing will be performed in order to ensure that they are meeting the accepted accessibility standard. For smaller projects or teams it may be that some internal checks are run, for larger projects it may be that a more formal audit or accessibility testing forms part of the acceptance criteria. - discussion on outsourcing issues

International Websites

Discussion on policy:

As WCAG 2.0 is the internationally recognized standard for web accessibility, your organizational policy will benefit from referencing it as the basis. In some situations local policies may reference additional requirements or particular accommodations that you will need to be aware of.

Introduction

Planning to incorporate accessibility into your project or organization is as straight forward as any other planning task. This document aims to provide you with guidance, actions, questions and a framework for how to approach planning for accessibility. Your actual approach will vary depending the size of your organization, what you are aiming to achieve and where you are in the development process.

Additional guidance is available if you are looking at Improving the Accessibility of Your Website.

This document is for project managers, project team leaders, and small business owners seeking to ensure a more accessible website or service. It will also benefit accessibility consultants who are engaged in supporting a project or broader organizational change.

Driver for accessibility

Understanding why you or your organization are seeking to incorporate accessibility allows you to identify activities that might be important to the success of the project. For example, if senior management have directed that all new websites must be accessible, then there is a need to ensure that the accessibility of the website is reported to them regularly. If you are responding to national legislation it may be beneficial to convince your project team and stakeholders that accessibility is something more than simply a legal burden and it may be appropriate to seek external validation to the websites accessibility claims.

The rationale for accessibility should be recorded as part of the broader project scope. This makes sure that everyone is clear why accessibility is important within this particular project. It also ensures that any further developments to the website include the same accessibility considerations.

Identify your goal

What you are aiming to achieve is important in understanding what activities are required. It could be that you are seeking to bring about more accessibility thinking within all aspects of your organization. Perhaps you are a project manager seeking to understand what activities and questions are important to plan for when creating a new accessible web service. Or you may be part of a small organization seeking to ensure that the new website you are commissioning is as accessible as possible.

Understanding your goal allows you to ensure that the activities you undertake are appropriate. For example, if you are seeking to bring about organizational change then there will be a need to plan broader activities such as reviewing purchasing procedures, recruitment criteria or training provision.

As with the driver for accessibility, the goal should be recorded in the project scope.

Organizational influence

Possibly one of the most important factors when considering what is achievable as a goal is what influence you have within your organization. It may be that, while you as the project manager do not have significant capacity to influence change, you have the backing of senior management who see what you are doing as the first steps in organization wide improvement. In this case you will need to consider what upward reporting is required and how to manage project legacy, such as changes in organizational design guidelines, procurement process or content management system recommendations.

It could also be that your organization has not yet embraced accessibility and you are keen to promote the value of such an approach. In this case activities such as setting out a business case to stakeholders will be of importance, particularly if there is a need to secure additional project funds.

Other important factors

  • Size of organization - Larger organizations are likely to have more developed and structured procedures, and will have many more websites and online services. Smaller organizations may have limited resources to draw on, limiting what activities are possible.
  • Outsourcing - Ensuring that sub-contractors are aware of your expectations and how to check that they delivered to the requested standard
  • Personnel skills - Depending on how knowledgeable your team is you may have to schedule in and budget for additional training. For ongoing content management there may be a need to put in place training for new staff.
  • Development process - Your development methodology may impact on when and what activities you can schedule. For example, agile process may allow for earlier feedback on individual components as they are developed. A waterfall approach will have a more defined testing phase which would focus accessibility testing resources. A test-driven approach would require, where possible, work to unpack the standards into automated tests.
  • Content management system (CMS) - Are you using a CMS? How supportive of accessibility is it? Do you have scope to change this? Where a CMS is less supportive, there may be a need to write more proprietary code to address 'off-the-shelf' issues.

Related resources

Establish Responsibilities

Goal

Identify and appoint individuals who are responsible for accessibility within your project team or organization, and outline what the roles entail.

Key actions

  • Assign responsibilities across different areas of the project, such as design, content creation, development and quality assurance
  • Consider what organizational areas might impact on the accessibility of the project, such as human resources, procurement, marketing, organizational executive, legal
  • Communicate up and down within the organization who the responsible parties are
  • If using a external company or organization, ensure that they are aware of their responsibility to deliver an accessible solution, be that a whole website or one part of it, for example the content
  • For websites with an international presence, ensure responsibility is assigned for each region
  • Plan to communicate successes throughout the organization and share knowledge between responsible parties
  • Put in place systems to capture and manage identified issues, possibly across projects

Responsibilities

Identifying and appointing individuals responsible for accessibility is an important part of the successful delivery of accessible websites and in bringing about organizational change. They ensure that any accessibility project issues are not neglected and that everyone on the team knows where to take accessibility questions.

Being responsible for the accessibility on a project involves a range of activities. What it does not mean is that you must enact appropriate solutions and policies yourself.

Depending on your goals and the size of your organization, the responsibilities might extend throughout your organization and include many people, or be confined to your project team.

One of the key responsibilities is to track and communicate the progress of the project. For single websites this may be as simple as maintaining a list of identified accessibility issues as part of the broader QA issue tracking activities. For larger projects or where the goal includes an element of organizational change there is a need for broader communication and coordination.

The following list provides examples of other activities that might be important to consider:

  • Executive presentations of progress and business value of accessibility
  • Regular communication between regional and departmental accessibility teams
  • Ongoing review and sharing of new accessibility techniques
  • Review and revision of policies and processes
  • Sharing project successes throughout the organization
  • Identify and respond to accessibility training needs
  • Manage and procure accessibility audits and testing

Example responsible roles

  • Design manager has a responsibility for ensuring that any accessibility barriers identified within the visual designs are tracked and addressed. They may also have responsibility for incorporating good accessibility practice within the brand or design guidelines.
  • Website developer assigned to test for and track accessibility issues within the code and maintaining code libraries with accessible components.
  • Procurement manager is responsible for ensuring that organizational accessibility policy is incorporated within procurement processes.
  • Managing director for small company would be responsible for ensuring that any agency delivered website meets your desired level of accessibility.

Accessible outsourcing

For some organizations much of the responsibility is often placed in the hands of an external company selected to create your website or a part of it, such as the visual design. In this case it is important to ensure that you, as the purchaser, are clearly communicating what you expect in terms of accessibility. Your accessibility policy could be incorporated into any purchasing process or into the contract with the supplier.

You also need to be clear with your supplier what acceptance testing will be performed in order to ensure that they are meeting the accepted accessibility standard. For smaller projects or teams it may be that some internal checks are run, for larger projects it may be that a more formal audit or accessibility testing forms part of the acceptance criteria.

Smaller teams

In smaller teams it is likely that one individual will be responsible for several or all aspects of accessibility planning. In this case it is important that sufficient resources, such as time and training, are provided to ensure the role can be performed along with any other responsibilities.

International websites

If your website or service spans a number of international legal jurisdictions, you are likely to need to be aware of different national standards or legal obligations.

In this case it is important to ensure that there are identified individuals and/or teams who have responsibility for accessibility in the different regions. This could be individuals from different regional offices or could be someone within central office who has web responsibilities stretching across multiple regions.

As WCAG 2.0 is the internationally recognized standard for web accessibility, your organizational policy will benefit from referencing it as the basis. In some situations local policies may reference additional requirements or particular accommodations that you will need to be aware of.

Related resources

Section format

Goal

  • What is this section about?

Key actions

  • What do I need to do?

Core content

  • Why is this relevant/important?
  • Is there anything particular for smaller or larger organizations?
  • What are the outputs (or what will this achieve)?
  • (letter 2 questions are more consideration-type questions that may be addressed by others)

Related resources

  • Are there any other resources that relate to this?