Outline: Developing Organizational Policies on Web Accessibility

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summary — comment {name}

General comments

• Existing content is good
• Covers conformance statements more than a broader organizational policy
  • Should this be developed into a document that discusses an organizational policy that aims to bring about change or should it just be a site/service policy?
    • Considering the ubiquitousness of the web, it should be leaning toward change (but not be a change tutorial/manual). This is important as most larger organisations will have some devolved responsibility for sub-sites and different service deliveries, so policy should be making sure everyone is on board. Having said that, this won't apply to all orgs, so maybe a pick and choose approach is required and needs to be made clear. {Andrew, 2014.07.04}

Introduction

Content notes

• Discussion of who or where responsiblity for the policy lies. Without a clear responsibility it will become someone elses problem

Reference guidelines clearly

Content notes

• Should there be reference to legal requirements. For multinationals this may be problematic, but could be part of regional versions of the policy
  • Might like to suggest that multinationals adopt the highest standard as that will benefit all parties. Especially stress for software developers selling into multinational markets. Also, the standards are converging and increasing around the world - so doing the work early saves rework as the requirements increase. {Andrew, 2014.07.04}

Define scope of website(s)

Content notes

• Clarify if it's the entire website, or a specific portion {Andrew, 2014.07.04}
  • does it include any interaction such as a booking or registration system
  • if there are third party components, such as payment gateway, are they in/out of scope
    • if out of scope - mention procurement for next time & mention how problems will be handled (e.g. by phone/email if system provides barriers to some)

Organizational integration of policy

Content notes

• Policy should be referenced within procurement, legal, development, quality assurance and support policies

Define monitoring, conformance claims, and follow-up process

Content notes

• Consider an annual report at executive level on state of conformance with the policy
• Include a clear indication of where sites in scope are failing to meet the policy
  • Consider adding mention of process (might be documented separately) to accomodate people having difficulty with site/application {Andrew, 2014.07.04}

Communicate the policy

Content notes

• Need to create a technical and non-technical version of the policy
• Communicate both clearly on the sites in scope, ideally with the non-technical element first
• Provide an opportunity for people to feedback
  • Acknowledge the feedback (not publicly) and have a process to capture and action as appropriate {Andrew, 2014.07.04}
• Communicate successes internally