Outline: Implementation Plan for Web Accessibility
comment format:
summary — comment {name}
Introduction
Who is this for?
Content notes
- Audience is project managers, project team leaders, accessibility consultants, small business owners
- Comment on who this is not for and directing them elsewhere - most notable are those seeking technical details
EOWG Comments:
- heading tweak — "Who this is for" I think better than question "Who is this for?" {Shawn, 26-June-2014}
What will this tell you?
Content notes
- Questions to consider as part of the planning process
- For larger organisations, how to go about developing a broad accessibility approach as well as what to consider for a specific project
- For smaller organisations, what to consider when commissioning a new site
EOWG Comments:
- heading tweak — "What this will tell you" I think better than question "What will this tell you?" -- although I think we want a little more formal for this page. {Shawn, 26-June-2014}
- scope — Many people still consider a website to be static/informational and not to include the interactive service delivery aspects. Suggest we spell that out here and through the page - refer to website plus web application or service delivery components as appropriate. {Andrew, 06-July-2014}
The need for accessibility
Content notes
- Reader may have little awareness of accessibility, only a desire (or directive) that it be done
- Guide through introductory resources on accessibility
Implementing improvements
Content notes
- If only interested in improvements, can direct them there
- Opportunity to highlight important aspects from this document as well
Exploring your organizational awareness
Content notes
- More applicable to larger organizations
- For smaller organizations it may still be worth commenting that developing an internal inclusive culture.
- Two contexts
- Organizational awareness related to the specific project to hand
- Broader business transformation to develop an organization that embraces accessibility
Organizational appreciation
Content notes
- Is there an awareness of the needs for accessibility within the organization?
- If so, how high up the organization is it?
- Is the awareness driven by an internal desire to create better, more inclusive websites or is it as a results of external pressure
- Is it seen as a check box exercise or a broader appreciation of the importance of accessibility?
- If there is nothing available then need to discuss resources concerned with improving business awareness e.g. business case
Influencing change and budget
Content notes
- Does the reader have sufficient influence and budgetary control to be able to manifest the required change?
- If not, time needed early within the project to make a business case for accessibility to those that do have the influence and control.
- Need to consider who is able to effect the changes required in order to make accessibility more integrated into the project processes
Identifying important roles and teams
Content notes
- What teams and individual roles are important to the accessibility of a site deliverable
- Includes content writers, marketing, procurement, developers, user experience and support
- These teams will likely be known as the resources will have to be considered as part of the whole project plan anyway
- Worth highlighting how these roles impact on accessibility
Measuring awareness
Content notes
- Important to understand what each of these teams understand accessibility to be
- Who they think it benefits and possibly how
- How they think their role is important in delivering an accessible site
- How confident they feel that they know what to do
- This can be achieved via survey. Would need an example
- Allows for the identification of where and what training is required and whether there is a need for external support to provide this
Develop organizational policy
Content notes
- Need to ensure that this does not overlap with the Organizational Policies document
- This section should discuss the environment in which the policy exists rather then how the policy is developed
- Provide a clear indication that the Organizational Policies document discusses the how-to of policy development
Identify existing policy
Content notes
- For large organizations, is there a company wide policy? Is there a departmental policy?
- Are there any departments that concern themselves with this. Could be corporate social responsibility, user experience, online development teams. Communicating with them may provide some indication of existing policies
- If there are existing policies:
- How are they implemented?
- What works and doesn't work?
- Are they in need of updating?
Small business policy
Content notes
- Need not be an involved activity or document
- Aim to capture intent
Communicating your policy
Content notes
- Tend to be involved documents with technical elements
- May not be suitable for core site audiences
- Consider creating a version which is more suited for broader audiences
- Provide an opportunity for readers to feedback or contact with compliments or concerns
Determine scope
Content notes
- Need to outline how best to capture scope
- May be a question of whether scope is for a single project or a wider transformation goal
- Key at this point to be clear about what is to be achieved. Be realistic
Understanding your audience
Content notes
- Ensure accessible for all
- May be the case that there is a known audience group that would benefit from particular features e.g. increased use of images for a learning difficulties support site
- Audience may be an internal one, in which case much more can be known
Sites and key journeys
Content notes
- Identify and document the scope of the project
- Identify key journeys and ensure that those are prioritized if resources become difficult
Supported technologies
Content notes
- Similar to identifying browsers and versions to be supported
- Based on audience are there any known technology dependancies
- What assistive technologies and versions should be used as a testing baseline
External requirements
Content notes
- Legal requirements
- Contractual obligations
Review available resources
Personnel
Content notes
- Slight overlap with Identifying important roles and teams
- Important personnel to consider for the purposes of creating a site: designers, developers, content creators
- Are their gaps that need to be addressed with external resources
- Securing time and budget for training once the scope of the requirement is identified
- Testing should ideally be performed by someone external to the team
- Are there any employees with disabilities that would be able to assist as reviewers
Design and interaction guidelines
Content notes
- Are there any design, brand or interaction guidelines?
- If so, have they been reviewed in line with any existing accessibility policy
- Good to try to incorporate accessibility into the guidelines that everyone has to use
- For example, checking the colour palate to ensure good contrast
Code libraries
Content notes
- Are there any standard code libraries in use for the creation of websites?
- If so, how accessible are the components that they create? This can be checked
- Incorporating good practice into code libraries ensures that this is propagated throughout all projects
Authoring tools
Content notes
- Explain what we mean by this
- Explain the impact that they can have
- Include most of the content from the Improving Existing Sites Authoring Tools section
Development processes
Content notes
- What processes existing within the organization that detail how web products should be developed
- How well are these processes adhered to? Do they work?
- Consider the whole process and review how accessibility might be incorporated
- For example, incorporating accessibility testing and/or audit as part of Quality Assurance stage
Procurement and commissioning
Procurement process
Content notes
- Incorporate policy within procurement process
- Ensure that third parties provide evidence of ability to deliver accessible solutions
- Consider accessibility audit/testing as part of acceptance criteria for delivery
- Consider contractual structures that would require third parties to address identified accessibility barriers
- If there is a preferred supplier list, ensure that the ability to provide accessible solutions is part of the criteria to be placed on the list
Commissioning a website
Content notes
- Ensure that accessibility is a key part of the requirements of the site
- As part of accepted delivery undertake some simple checks to review the site
- For medium sized organizations, consider an audit as part of the delivery acceptance
- Need to provide resources for smaller companies so they know what to ask a supplier for and are able to understand what they received
Building an accessibility team
Content notes
- Two possible aspects to this depending on the aims.
- If the aim is to build an accessible website, then the focus is on the delivery team and their skills
- If the aim is more about business transformation as well as delivering an accessible website, then there is an additional need to consider how accessibility is to be supported for future projects
Accessibility champions
Content notes
- Important to have one person responsible for accessibility
- Avoids the problem of everyone thinking that someone else is dealing with it
- If it is a core part of someone's role, more chance that it will not be deprioritized
- Depending on size of organization there may be multiple champions spread across key deparments or regions
- Role is one of advocacy as well as implementation
Project life cycle
Content notes
- The Start with Accessibility document covers much of the information that would be valuable here
- Outline of activities that would be useful, when, and roughly how long they might take
- Consider what changes can be made depending on development approach; waterfall, agile, test driven, incremental?
Communicating and sharing
Communicating success
Content notes
- Share project experiences
- Stories of how people might have benefited from changes
- Larger organizations may need briefed on key measures of success
- Press releases may be a valuable exercise as part of corporate social responsibility activities
Communicating with users and customers
Content notes
- Need to ensure that users are aware of the ongoing efforts
- What barriers might exist at the moment, when will they be addressed, what can users do until a fix is in place
- Ensure there is a channel for users to feedback any issues
Ongoing communication
Content notes
- Tracking of ongoing issues
- Repository of accessibility knowledge
- Maintaining policies and procedures inline with accessibility policy
Maintenance and monitoring
Content notes
- Covers both maintenance and monitoring of the built website and general organizational accessibility
- Slight overlap with the Communicating and sharing section
Supporting your website
Content notes
- Needs to be provision for feedback from website and internally
- Process in place to ensure that feedback is acted on and responded to
- Identified issues need to be tracked and flagged to identified team or individual responsible for accessibility
- Schedule a regular audit process for website accessibility. This may be required if using any accessibility logos or quality assurance marques
- Ensure that when there are maintenance builds scheduled that any accessibility issues are reviewed and addressed
Content updates
Content notes
- Content continually evolves
- Standard training for content managers should include accessibility training
- For high volume sites may be worth having regular spot checks on content
- If there is a quality assurance phase as part of the publishing process, include accessibility checking as part of that
Maintaining policies and processes
Content notes
- Reviewing policy regularly, e.g. annually, ensures that it is still in line with regulatory requirements and has the correct scope
- As part of procurement, if there is a preferred supplier list, ensure that they are reviewed to ensure that they continually supply accessible deliverables