CSUN 2011: How to Eat an Elephant: Tackling Web Accessibility in a Large Corporation

How to Eat an Elephant: Tackling Web Accessibility in a Large Corporation Elle Waters & Lisa Barnett Humana Inc. 03/16/2011

Our corporate context Accessibility program case study: Humana Inc.

Humana background
Fortune 100 Company (and moving up!)
29,000 employees
Over 11 million customers in U.S.
140+ web properties
Fast, organic growth of company, and evolving business model
Decentralized, cost-center structure
Questions about “who owns the web” and who “owns user experience” and what those mean
Consumer focus and aggressive initiatives to improve user experience and engagement

Our initial questions
Who?
What?
When?
Where?
How?

Challenges and Benefits
Lack of Infrastructure
Unscalable process
Institutional complexity
Large Medicare customer base
Consumer focus
Progressive attitude
Flexible roles
Challenges we face Benefits we enjoy

Our experience standing up a new program Accessibility program case study: Humana Inc.

Our approach and business case
Motivation
Positioning
Communication
Elements of our business case
Risk analysis
Improved senior usability
Standardized coding
Additional benefits
Planning for change
Recommendations

We looked internally for something similar :
Information Security as a model
Neither "Business" nor IT
Perceived as specialists and experts
Represent and protect the whole enterprise
Has non-negotiable success criteria
Acts as consultants throughout the project lifecycle
Assessed risk to the enterprise and impacts to other areas

How we assessed risk
Visibility
Audience
Customer expectations
Regulatory oversight
V I S I B I L I T Y O V E R S I G H T Highest Risk Lowest Risk

How we prioritized and scheduled effort
Risk level – defined internally
Effort required to remediate
Alignment with other initiatives and projects, including complete redesigns
Level of training required for development staff
Available budget for work
Input from business units
The changing legal landscape
Results of automated testing
How “broken” is it? Is critical path executable?

Our integration into Humana’s SDLC
Found an advocate!
Focused on quantitative – testing requirements
High visibility
Leveraged IT’s Process Tailoring Assessment
- Identify projects and business partners
- Helped with prioritization, planning, funding
Reciprocation with Marketing visibility for SDLC
IT team contact, good for training invite list
Workflows and processes we could use
Demonstration of collaborative spirit

We needed a business testing tool
Alignment with SDLC - use same criteria to monitor projects after launch
Extends "life cycle" to sunsetting, practically
Status reports to leadership and compliance
Supports standardization of code
Provides defensible documentation
Can test for some brand standards
Alignment between accessibility and usability may be possible, integrating our site metrics
Saves money on automated testing

Our biggest “wins”
Collaboration with IT
Integration into our SDLC
Finding a great accessibility partner
Leveraging existing model (IT Security)
Our partnership and combined strengths

Initial learnings
Plant seeds and cultivate what grows!
A single vendor for both software and consulting streamlines process AND communication
Effective relationships with the right people dramatically sped our progress
Sometimes, the right people aren’t interested
Accessibility can further other people’s goals
Implementation is a good first-year focus; position usability as an innate benefit of accessibility
Competitive benchmarking is helpful to show opportunity in the marketplace

Human Resources
Diversity & Inclusion
ADA Coordinator
Associate Intranet
Workspace Solutions
IT
IT (different business units)
Enterprise architecture
SDLC
ITLS
IT Security
CSS
Marketing
Support for each business unit
Social networking
SEO
Misc/other
Procurement
Humana Military
Strategic & Corporate Communication
Agent/Broker support
Customer Care
Legal
Legal
Compliance
Vendor contracts and management
Humana Web Accessibility & Usability Program Humana’s Decentralized Business Model

Why a Marketing/IT partnership works for us
Maintains user-centered design approach, and addresses needs of implementation teams
Better acceptance and comprehension of requirements by business units
Greater consistency
Shared costs
Better integration and collaboration between design and development
More visibility across the company
Shared credit for success is highly motivating

Recommendations Accessibility program case study: Humana Inc.

What we wish we’d known when we started
People looked to us for leadership
Enterprise-level, accessibility management software acquisition should happen early
Regulatory Compliance could have helped get the right people in the room together
People want, and can understand accessibility standards with testable criteria
We would need to be familiar with the budgeting process
IT could be our champion

Questions? Deque, the experts, are here!

Additional notes

Top ten things to get started
Start with just 2 or 3 people from different parts of the company: Marketing, Compliance and IT are great candidates
Get a high-level audit to show the severity of the problem and to support the business case
Find a great consulting partner and engage them early in the process to make recommendations and strategize with you
Put together a good business case and present it strategically to people who can help you
Get a pilot project started and train a core team of developers

Top ten things to get started
Partner with IT leadership and meet regularly
Leverage existing processes, documentation and models
Look for a model within your company that you can leverage
Define realistic goals for the first year, estimate the cost and present it to leadership
Build accessibility requirements into all RFPs for contract development

Prioritization established for years 1 and 2
Foundation to support accessibility across the enterprise in place
Accessibility policy, standards and guidelines developed and socialized (usability standards still in development)
Accountability and enforcement protocol established
Tools to monitor progress in place (in progress)
Ability to generate defensible documentation (in progress)
Basic training in place to support Year 1 goals (in progress)
Training planned to support year 2 goals
Process in place to review, assess and plan remediation for proposed acquisitions and procurements
System in place to respond to customer complaints
Plans in place to manage change (in progress)
Our progress to date

Deque’s Accessibility Roadmap

8-Step Implementation Model From WebAIM.org: 1: Gather Baseline Information 2: Gain Top Level Support 3: Organize a Web Accessibility Committee 4: Define a Standard 5: Create an Implementation Plan 6: Provide Training and Technical Support 7: Monitor Conformance 8: Remain Flexible Through the Changes

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CSUN 2011: How to Eat an Elephant: Tackling Web Accessibility in a Large Corporation

by Nethermind on Mar 18, 2011

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CSUN 2011: How to Eat an Elephant: Tackling Web Accessibility in a Large Corporation — Presentation Transcript