Planning/Information Architecture/Categories

From Education & Outreach

Introduction

The planning categories refer to how information should be structured within the Planning and were developed following a Task Sorting Activity. The categories will provide users with a high level filter allowing them to find information relevant to a planning task they are engaged in.

The initial seven categories are based on the clusters that emerged from the task sorting activity. The names were developed based on common terms used by participants. Also included is the level that these activities might ideally be considered; organizational or project.

The tasks have been placed in most relevant categories. For most tasks this did not involve moving them. For some, interpretation of their meaning resulted in them being moved to a category that better reflects the task.

The aim with the categories is to group tasks based on broad strategic activities. The existing Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility document presents more of a staged approach to developing a strategic plan.

Categories

Communication or Outreach

Scope: Organizational

Task list

  • Find about the basics of accessibility
    • Source: Personas: Cedric
    • Scope: Individual
    • Keywords:
    • Alternative name: Starting with accessibility
    • Note: This may be more suitably placed in Training if this section is more about communicating the value of and need for accessibility.
    • Content:
      TBD
    • Resources:
    • Content:
      TBD
  • Identify the key reasons for accessibility
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational and project
    • Content:
      Explore why accessibility has become important to help you prepare materials to persuade others and resolve resource prioritization clashes. Prepare a business case focused on key reasons to help in this process. Key reasons may also suggest additional necessary activities. For example, an executive directive to increase revenue by growing the website's reach to include people with disabilities, older people, and mobile web users will likely require more robust reporting of accessibility achievements and impact on revenue.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Exploring organizational approach to and understanding of accessibility
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational
    • Key questions: how and why
    • Content:
      Use how your organization currently understands and views accessibility to help refine what goals can be realistically achieved. Review any existing policies or process, and explore the issue with key members of staff. As well as helping refine your goals, this should also highlight what activities might be beneficial in promoting those goals and gathering internal support.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Communicating organizational accessibility aims and value
  • Identify and appoint people responsible for accessibility
    • Source: Personas: Svetla
    • Scope: Organization or project
    • Alternative: Communicate within the project and organization who the responsible parties are
    • Content:
      TBD
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Report design and technical achievements and knowledge to other website teams
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational
    • Alternative: Share knowledge to spread accessibility throughout organization
    • Content:
      Consider how successful approaches, techniques, and resources can be best communicated to other website teams. Sharing spreads best practice solutions and helps reduce the chance of the same problems occurring elsewhere. Use this as an opportunity to highlight the value of accessibility, with concrete examples, to help change attitudes towards accessibility. As knowledge of accessibility spreads through your organization, having a known platform for communicating this information can be invaluable as teams will come to see it as a go-to resource when developing websites.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Prepare a business case for management highlighting the value accessibility brings

Process Improvement

Scope: Organizational

Alternative: Organizational processes

Task list

  • Manage third-party provider accessibility requirements
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational or project
    • Content:
      If you use an external company for the creation of part or all of your website then make them aware of your accessibility policy. Ultimately you, as the purchaser, still hold responsibility for website accessibility. Responsibility in this case means clear communication of what you expect in terms of accessibility and any additional accessibility acceptance testing.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Modify brand guidelines to build accessibility in
  • Include accessibility policy as part of purchasing process
  • Update publication process to include accessibility checks
    • Scope: Organizational
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Questions: What checks should be included?
    • Content:
      Aim to incorporate accessibility checks as part of your web content publishing workflow. This ensures that few errors are introduced and helps identify additional training needs.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Create a design agency briefing incorporating accessibility
    • Personas: Cedric
    • Scope: Project
    • Questions: What should be included? How should the results be checked?
    • Content:
      TBD
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Improve existing project management process to bake in accessibility
  • Assign responsibility to other organizational areas that impact on website accessibility
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational
    • Questions: What other areas should be considered? How can they impact on accessibility?
    • Content:
      For example, incorporating your accessibility policy into procurement processes reduces the risk that third-party supplied content or tools will introduce accessibility barriers. Consider other organizational areas such as information technology, human resources, marketing, organizational executive, and legal. Identify and appoint individuals to review policies and processes with accessibility in mind.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Include accessibility requirements as standard criteria in the recruitment process
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Note: Really part of the previous item
    • Content:
      As your organization develops, projects will benefit from accessibility recruitment requirements being incorporated into recruitment criteria. This helps build and maintain the overall skill level and capabilities across the organization.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Identify web authoring tools and review how well they support your accessibility goals
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational or project
    • Questions: How is this done?
    • Content:
      Review how well your authoring tools and processes support accessibility. As well as considering how the tools help create accessible content, review how they support content editors with disabilities. Content management systems (CMS) and templates have a fundamental impact on accessibility and are difficult to change later on. Also, consider other processes involved in the production of other online content for your website, for example, documents or video creation.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Review organizational design and development resources
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational or project
    • Questions: What sort of resources does this encompass?
    • Content:
      Assess any organizational resources such as design or branding guidelines, content guidelines, standard coding libraries, or guidelines for online services. Aim to ensure that they are supportive of the organizational accessibility goals. Ensuring shared resources such as these are accessible will have a significant impact on any subsequent online projects using them.
    • Resources:
      TBD

Maintenance

Scope: Organizational

Alternative: Monitoring

Alternative: Monitoring and reporting

Task list

  • Create a plan for regular checks and audits
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Project
    • Content:
      Updates to content and website maintenance work may introduce accessibility barriers so it is important to plan for regular monitoring. Create a plan for regular reviews of random sample content from the website. Ensure that clear responsibility is assigned for the checks and there are clear escalation paths for identified issues.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Report to stakeholders the project accessibility successes and difficulties
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Project
    • Content:
      Keep stakeholders and management aware of accessibility progress made. Consider what information is most relevant to their needs and how frequently it is required. For example, if they are concerned with legal compliance issues then it is important to report on how well websites conform with your organizational policy. If their primary concern is corporate social responsibility then they may be interested in PR activities, publicity, and impact on brand.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Create an organization wide accessibility monitoring and reporting framework
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational
    • Content:
      Develop a standard reporting framework to help track and show accessibility improvements. When your organization has many websites, such a framework can be used to provide an overview of improvements and areas still in need of attention. For individual websites, having a standard reporting framework will help show progress.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Implement a public feedback process for accessibility issues
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational or project
    • Contnet:
      Feedback from your website users can be an invaluable resource in improving website accessibility. Plan for a clear and simple way to allow users to raise accessibility issues. Ensure that the process includes a suitable mechanism to respond to feedback. Ensure there is adequate infrastructure to deal with any queries and escalate to responsible parties for immediate resolution or inclusion in the next maintenance release.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Create and track metrics on accessibility improvements
    • Source: Personas: Megumi
    • Scope: Organizational or project
    • Content:
      TBD
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Assess and track accessibility requirements
    • Source: Personas: Matt
    • Scope: Organizational
    • Note: Connects in with communication or policy development, as teams will need to know what requirements are applicable
    • Content:
      TBD
    • Resources:
      TBD

Project Management

Scope: Project

Task list

  • Evaluate throughout the project and ensure a comprehensive evaluation on completed website
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Project
    • Phase: Throughout
    • Content:
      Plan evaluations for key milestones or sprints throughout the development process. Key pages or processes and stand alone components can be evaluated as they become available. Aim to ensure that what has been created meets the standards outlined in your organizational policy.
      Include input from users with disabilities as part of your evaluations. Encourage team members to attend testing sessions as this provides considerable insight into barriers and helps team members identify with the problems caused.
      Identified barriers should be reviewed by key team members to identify suitable solutions which should then be fed into the next development cycle.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Plan for a reasonable gap between completion and go-live to address any final barriers
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Project
    • Phase: Monitoring and controlling
    • Content:
      Running an accessibility evaluation in the last stages of a project will increase the risk that barriers will be found when there is no time or budget to address them. Starting early and integrating the evaluations will reduce this risk. Even with an iterative evaluation approach it could be that barriers are only found when the complete site is tested. Plan for some final time before go-live to reduce this risk.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Evaluate all project design assets
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Project
    • Phase: Executing, Monitoring and controlling
    • Content:
      Review all design assets, including resources such as visual design and interaction concepts, wireframes, and prototypes. This will help identify barriers before significant coding work takes place. Consider reviewing resources such as personas, user stories, and storyboards. Incorporating the needs of users with disabilities into these assets can help designers and developers better understand how people will interact with your website.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Identify and assign responsibilities within the team
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Project
    • Phase: Planning
    • Alternative: Identify roles and assign responsibilities across different areas of the project
    • Content:
      For website development projects identify key project team members who will have responsibility for leading accessibility activities within their area and to function as primary contacts for accessibility questions. Ensure there is representation from across all project areas such as design, content creation, development, and quality assurance. In smaller teams it is likely that one individual will have primary responsibility for accessibility.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Identify and document the project accessibility goals
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Project
    • Phase: Initiating
    • Content:
      Define project accessibility goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-targeted. This helps to focus your team, clarifies what activities need to be planned, suggests how support can be best secured, and defines what deliverables are required. Goals may address the accessibility of a single website or online service, or may be more related to broader integration of accessibility into development processes and policies.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Identify and prioritize accessibility issues
  • Assess expertise and motivation of key project personnel
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Project
    • Phase: Planning
    • Content:
      Carry out an evaluation of technical, design, and content creation staff. Aim to identify what, if any, gaps in understanding and expertise exist. Also consider how motivated team members are to deliver accessible solutions. Use this information to create training solutions that respond to the needs of your team.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Research lessons learned from the development of other websites within the organization
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Project
    • Phase: Closing
    • Content:
      Identify and review any accessibility evaluations from similar previous projects. Aim to identify common good practices, and approaches that are known to cause problems. Seek out any accessibility resources used by previous project teams. For organizational change, evaluating existing websites will be an important early activity in understanding the extent of work required.
    • Resources:
      TBD

Training

Scope: Organizational and project

Task list

  • Prepare and communicate an introduction to accessibility resource
  • Budget and plan general awareness raising and targeted skills building training for team members
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Project
    • Note: This links in with the Project Management category
    • Content:
      All team members and, ideally, peer project managers will benefit from general accessibility awareness and understanding training. Depending on the size of your team you may conduct more involved training for all team members, or target specific key groups or individuals. For example, front-end developers receive training that differs from content creators. Consider on-going training at regular intervals to evolve the expertise and keep team knowledge up-to-date. Adopt developed training more broadly as part of your training offering.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Recruit personnel with specific accessibility expertise
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational or project
    • Questions: What skills and criteria are important? What roles is this important for?
    • Content:
      Target recruitment for personnel with particular accessibility expertise. Use new experienced staff to boost the overall skills already within the team. They can help develop or deliver training sessions, or act as mentors to help build the skills of key team members.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Manage content accessibly
    • Source: Personas: Jani
    • Scope: Organizational or project
    • Alternative: Learn how content should be managed to ensure it stays accessible.
    • Content:
      TBD
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Checking accessibility to confirm developer claims
  • Understand what to do when some web content isn't accessible
    • Source: Personas: Jani
    • Scope: Project
    • Questions: Prioritizing resources? How to keep your audience informed? Managing alternative solutions?
    • Content:
      TBD
    • Resources:
      TBD
    • Note: Has overlap with project management
  • Prepare accessibility training materials for technical team
  • Identify external sources of accessible information and examples
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational or project
    • Content:
      Consider what accessibility information and advisory resources are available external to your organization. Websites, forums, mailing lists, and books are invaluable in exploring accessibility in general and creating accessible solutions. Build a library of these resources for project team members, ideally allowing for their contributions.
    • Resources:
      TBD

Policy

Scope: Organizational or project

Alternative: Policy development

Task list

  • Identify any existing policies related to accessibility
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational
    • Content:
      Review any existing policies and commitments relating to accessibility. They may provide a foundation for a more comprehensive policy. For example, there may be policies relating to work ethics, equal opportunities, diversity, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) that could be relevant. Reviewing existing policies will provide more insight on the organizational understanding and view of accessibility.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Create a policy to address accessibility of internal systems and tools
  • Understand what the legal risks are associated with accessibility
  • Understand the broad impact of accessibility and legal responsibilities
  • Communicate and promote the policy across relevant parts of the organization
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational
    • Content:
      Acknowledge your intent by making internal and external audiences aware of your policy and commitments. Promote your policy internally to improve awareness for subsequent projects.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Review related policies and procedures to incorporate the accessibility policy throughout
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational
    • Content:
      Most organizations have policies governing both broad aspects of doing business as well as specific areas such as procurement or marketing. An effective accessibility strategy will develop statements that can be integrated into policies already in place. For example, your procurement processes would outline how externally purchased websites or elements will meet your accessibility policy and what acceptance criteria are acceptable.
    • Resources:
      TBD
  • Schedule regular reviews and updates of policies and processes
    • Source: Strategic Planning for Web Accessibility
    • Scope: Organizational
    • Content:
      Following project completion conduct a review of organizational policies and procedures related to website development. Aim to update them based on how well they support the creation of accessible websites and in response to user feedback.
      For example, your policy may say little regarding video transcripts and visitor feedback consistently highlights this as a problem. This could be addressed by improving your video creation guidelines and review process to include better instructions on transcripts.
    • Resources:
      TBD
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