Making A Strong Case For Accessibility

Making A Strong Case For Accessibility Todd Libby Slides: https://noti.st/colabottles/y0skmR/making-a-strong-case-for-accessibility @toddlibby

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Who Are You?

Accessibility Engineer @ WebstaurantStore Front End/Backend Developer, Accessibility Advocate, W3C Member

https://webaim.org/projects/million/

“The design of mainstream products and/or services that are accessible to, and usable by, as many people as reasonably possible… without the need for special adaptation or specialized design.” — The British Standards Institution (2005) https://shop.bsigroup.com/upload/Download/30317424.pdf

https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#contrast-minimum

https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrastminimum.html

Other Examples Other examples of practical di ital accessibility Scrollable interactive content Alternative text on images where necessary (infographics, charts, graphs) Sunlight when viewing mobile phone screen Other situational disabilities Broken arm g Child on lap

“The client doesn’t have the budget for it.” “We’ll get to it after launch.”

“The client doesn’t have the budget for it.” “We’ll get to it after launch.” “The people that use our product aren’t disabled.”

“The client doesn’t have the budget for it.” “We’ll get to it after launch.” “The people that use our product aren’t disabled.” “We don’t have disabled users.”

“You’ll be saving the company a lot of money when you do this from the start.” “When maintenance is needed, it won’t take the team as long to maintain the code because of accessibility and clean, semantic code.” “Your developers will feel less stress, less pressure, less headaches, less time spent reworking things.” “You’re less likely to be sued by an individual or individuals when they come across your product and they cannot access it.”

Buy-in How do I et buy-in from stakeholders, clients, collea ues? • Once you have stakeholder support, then you may see support trickle down to managers, then teams, and then individuals. • “You’ll be saving the company a lot of money when you do this from the start. When maintenance is needed, it won’t take the team as long to maintain the code because of accessibility and clean code.” • Cite instances from the lawsuits that have been won against Target, Bank of America, Domino’s Pizza, and others. • Live testing with disabled users are also another way to get buy-in across g g the board.

Organization Advocates Teams or individuals that advocate in your or anization • Having a person throughout each department or a team focused on accessibility. • Have an individual who is the liaison regarding accessibility. • Someone that can answer questions and work with others to practice the guidelines and work with others to make accessible products. • Help set up documentation and tooling, serve as an intermediary between g departments.

Assessment Assess the product and the proficiency within the or anization • Gauging the point where the product(s) are as far as how inclusive and accessible they are is a key priority. • What is the current state of the product? • What is the current state of the website or mobile application? • Getting the general idea of the level of knowledge that teams and people in the company currently have. 1. How versed are they in accessibility guidelines and practices? 2. Do they know anything about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)? g 3. How much training do you have and will you need?

Training Maintainin A Written Record g • Of all accessibility training done • To meet requirements that apply to the organization • Great way to keep data on all training done in organization • Record the training and who trained and when it was completed • If there is no inter-organizational training use orgs that do training such as: • WebAIM • Deque • TPGi

Guidelines Consistent implementation • Reduces the amount of work • Reduces the amount of stress teams are under • Design systems ensure accessibility and inclusivity and the understanding of code better ffi • Accessible components reduce time to implement • Testing procedures implemented so people can do jobs well and e • Document guidelines in a collaborative manner using tools ciently

Standards Guidelines from different countries • American Disabilities Act (ADA) - United States • Section 508 (U.S. Government) • Accessible Canada Act (ACA) - Canada • EN 301 549 - European Union • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - Internationally • Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD) • Article 9 • Article 21

Use Cases/Testing Hirin disabled people g • Test & record cases where disabled users are using the product • Present to colleagues/stakeholders • Outsource testing with companies: • Applause • Fable • Hire disabled people! • Teaching and advocating

Maintenance Accessibility is never done • Automated testing wherever possible with new releases or changes • Screen reader analysis before every release • Annual audits • User testing • Accessibility is never done! • Like the ever-evolving web, accessibility is always evolving

Now What?

Do The Work

“…our industry as a whole thinks less and less about accessibility (not that we ever had an A game on the subject), and talks less and less about progressive enhancement, preferring to chase the ephemeral goal posts of over-engineered solutions to nonproblems.” Jeffrey Zeldman - https://www.zeldman.com/2019/12/01/bluebeanieday2019/

A11y is a right. NOT a privilege. https://cottonbureau.com/products/a11y-is-a-right#/5254640/

Thank you! @toddlibby https://toddl.dev https://noti.st/colabottles/y0skmR/making-a-strong-case-for-accessibility