Managing Accessibility Compliance in the Enterprise

Managing Accessibility Compliance in the Enterprise
Karl Groves
Director of Training, Deque Systems
Phone: 443-517-9280
E-mail: karl.groves@deque.com
Twitter: @karlgroves

Agenda
Defining the problem
Solving the Problem
Gauging Organizational Maturity
Managing Compliance
Project Management Approaches
Waterfall
Agile
Training
Center of Excellence
Recap & Questions

Defining The Problem

Defining the Problem
Objective: Understand the ways in which accessibility is often mishandled in large organizations, thus leading to risk exposure

Accessibility compliance is often backwards
Testing & compliance efforts often happen after the fact
Post-deployment remediation is often expensive, time-consuming, and incapable of addressing high impact issues
This damages profitability, timelines, and quality

Accessibility is often not part of the process
Should be included in all phases of the lifecycle
Planning
Requirements
Procurement/ Design & Development
Release
Maintenance

Staff often lack training on accessibility
Executives
Human Resources
Project Managers
Developers
Content Creators
QA

Accessibility policy & procedure not formalized
Not part of ELC/ SDLC
No formal conformance criteria
No teeth to acceptance process
No enterprise tools provided to staff

Solving the Problem

Where does the organization stand nowwith respect to Accessibility Policy & Procedure?
This gives us our path moving forward.

Is there a formal program in place to manage accessibility compliance?

Who is tasked with coordinating accessibility compliance?

Does the org. have a PMO (Project Management Office)?
PMO might also be Program Management Office

Does the organization have a documented SDLC/ ELC?

Has accessibility been placed into your ELC/ SDLC processes?

Does language exist in your procurement/ specification development documents which discuss accessibility compliance?
If so, is it specific enough to be followed

Are deliverables validated for accessibility before acceptance?
Is code validated for accessibility before acceptance into source control?

What internal training is in place to educate QA/ development staff in accessibility?

What technologies are under development by the company?
Web?
Software?
Documents?
Multimedia?

For Web: What technologies are used on the web?
JavaScript/ DOM Scripting?
Ajax?
Flash?
Flex?

Who performs testing to ensure accessibility?
Developers?
QA Dept.?
UX staff?

What software/ tools are in use by the development team to assess accessibility?

If they use an enterprise-class tool, have they had any formal training in how to use the product?

Is there a formalized (documented) accessibility auditing methodology in place?

To what standards are the company’s products developed/ tested against?

What formal training does the typical developer have in accessibility?
What formal training does the typical QA tester have in accessibility?

Do the testers use assistive technologies to perform tests?

Have they documented the conformance criteria for the standards against which they’ve chosen to comply?

Does the company test their system(s) using users with disabilities?

Does the company test for functional performance?

Organizational Maturity: A Customer Story
Conducted an Accessibility Skills Assessment Survey for a client with about 200 staff representing Content Creators, Design/UI, QA and Project Management members. The client’s goal was to determine their accessibility related knowledge. The results were:
79% had formal Computer Science training
55% of the skills questions were answered incorrectly across all 4 areas
23% of the respondents had some formal training in accessibility
22% had training* in the workplace on Accessibility (not formal training)
21% seek out accessibility knowledge online through web sites and blogs
3% of those tested attended an accessibility related event
0% have purchased books on the topic

Managing Compliance
Solving the Problem

Managing Compliance
How can we address the shortcomings found in our organization’s level of maturity with regard to accessibility?

Managing Compliance: High Level
Train, train, train
Institutionalize conformance
Plan compliance a head of time
Include a SME throughout all project phases
Monitor compliance at all phases
Implement Center of Excellence
Prevention is preferable to inspection & rework.
Remediation can add up to 40% more time to front-end development if not done right in the first place

Remediation vs. Doing it Right
Avg. cost per defect = (num of devs * num of hours) * cost per dev per hour
--------------------------------------------------
(number of fixed defects)
Some estimates in QA community calculate cost around $500 per defect to find & fix defects and deploy remediated code
Dependent upon #of bugs, etc.

Managing Compliance

Remember this: It is hard to stop a moving train. Accessibility must be managed early and closely.

Waterfall Model

Planning Phase
Determine what risk is involved re: accessibility
Determine the overall impact accessibility may have on project timeline
Determine whether any extra funding or resources are needed for accessibility
Include accessibility assets needed for project
Determine what accessibility related activities are necessary in each phase

Requirements Phase
Identify accessibility stakeholders
For each feature/ technology in use, determine what standards and guidelines will apply
Include typical use cases/ user stories to generate accessibility requirements

Procurement
Investigate what conformance requirements exist for deliverable
Communicate this in all solicitations
Research available market offerings
Determine which product/ service offers highest level of compliance while fitting business need
Validate vendor claims of conformance, they will often be inaccurate or incomplete
Ensure final award documents cite conformance requirements

Design Phase
Utilize deliverables from planning & requirements phases to inform design phase
Revisit/ revise conformance criteria based on technologies in use
Validate design prototypes and comps with stakeholders and SMEs
Audit functional mockups for accessibility
Utilize formal best practices to gauge compliance

Development Phase
Get ahead of accessibility issues. This is the last viable chance to prevent problems
Revisit/ revise conformance criteria based on technologies in use
Perform iterative testing as system is developed
Developers should test code as they develop, just as they would for browser compatibility

Testing
Thorough testing required
Test against formal standard with well-defined conformance criteria
Ensure testing involves functional performance with assistive technologies

Deployment Phase
Ensure system is deployed with any accessibility-related configuration in place

Maintenance Phase
Provide a method to identify and track accessibility-related problems (pref. as bugs)
Assign appropriate priority to issues

Milestone 1
Milestone 2
Milestone 3
Milestone 4A
Milestone 4B
Milestone 5
Work ProductComponent
Applicable Provision Evaluation
Initial
Final
Update
Update
Accessibility Risk Information Document
Initial
Final
Update
Update
Initial
Final
Update
Accessibility Compliance Approach
Initial
Final
Update
Update
Integration Plan forAccessible Support
Initial
Final
Final
Initial
Accessibility Test Plan
Accessibility Test Results
Identify the Applicable 508 Provision
Create a Test Plan
Identify 508 Issuesand Make Corrections
Enterprise Life Cycle (ELC) Section 508 Work Product - to - Milestone Cross-Reference Matrix

Agile Model

Agile vs. Waterfall
Both methodologies have:
Planning
Requirements
Design
Develop
Implementation
Difference is in approach
No difference regarding accessibility

Agile - Planning
Develop accessibility user stories
“I want to be able to access audio description for online videos”
“I want to be able to compare products”…”using a screen reader”
Identify disabled Customer Representative
“Customer collaborationover contract negotiation”
(Agile Manifesto)

Agile – Planning
Based on features under development this cycle:
Identify any applicable standards.
For those standards, identify conformance criteria
For each conformance criteria, identify best practices to develop requirements
Include these requirements in Definition of Done

Agile - Development
Developers should create accessibility tests during test development
Developers should utilize automated testing (inc. tools like FireEyes) during development prior to committing changes

Agile - Development
Ensure any unmet accessibility requirements are put into sprint backlog for reinclusion next iteration

Remediation
Treat accessibility errors as you would any other bug
Prioritize based on impact, time to fix

Remediation Matrix

Training
Managing Compliance

Benefits of Training
Addresses disparities in level of understanding
Addresses inaccuracies/ deficiencies in understanding
Reduces risk of non-compliant interfaces & content
Avoids costly post release remediation
Protects project timelines and budgets

Training Philosophy
Train people to understand disabilities
A firm grasp of “Why” can always lead you to discover “how”. Technology is always changing. Challenges faced by disabled users do not change.
Train people to understand their specific impact on end users

Training
All involved in design & dev, plus HR & execs should get high level understanding of:
Laws
Standards
Understanding Disability

Training
Executives
Policy & Risk

Training
Human Resources
Skill set(s) to look for in future applicants
Training requirements for current staff

Training
Procurement
Legal implications of accessibility compliance
How different technologies impact accessibility
How, when, and which standards apply

Training
Project Management
Understanding requirements & how to define them
Integrating accessibility into lifecycle: what & where

Training
Designers
Specific BPs relating to interaction & visual design
What they design gets implemented

Training
Developers
Specific BPs relating to production of accessible interfaces
Specific advanced techniques based on technologies under development.

Training
Content Creators
Specific BPs relating to production of accessible content
Techniques & Procedures on use of content creation tools (i.e. content management systems) so accessible output is ensured

Training
QA
Need to understand how to test for accessibility
Need to understand how to use accessibility testing tools & interpret their output

Accessibility Center of Excellence
Managing Compliance

Center of Excellence: What it is
Centralized location for knowledge, training, support, and expertise in accessibility.
Provides communication between knowledge domains
Develops, maintains, and shares accessibility resources, and assets

COE: The Promise
Support for individuals and enterprise
Standards for consistent implementation
Training to improve individual and enterprise execution
Measurements to the expectation
Governance for consistent implementation by the agency and contractors

COE: Support
Design Support
Prototype Validation
Development Support
Accessibility User Stories
Customer Advocate
Subject matter expertise
Testing Support
Testing/ Conformance
Continuous Monitoring
Use Case/ Usability Test Support

COE: Standards
Broad, Organizational Standards
Interpretation of Ind. Standards
Development Guides
Global Testing to determine areas of improvement

COE: Training
Establish an agency/corporate curriculum
Testing/ Conformance guides based on technologies in use
New hire assets

COE: Measurements
Dashboard reporting throughout all levels of the enterprise
Establish your benchmark and measure improvements
Assist PM in measuring success
Gather metrics

COE: Governance
Ensure consistent contract language
Ensure compliance of deliverables by vendors
Gatekeeper to acceptance/ release/ milestone exit
Rules which are not enforced don’t get followed

Recap
The Problem
Accessibility Compliance is Backwards
Accessibility Not Part of the Process
Staff are not trained
Accessibility Policy & Procedure not formalized
The Solution
Train, train, train
Institutionalize conformance
Plan compliance
Include a SME throughout all project phases
Monitor compliance
Implement Center of Excellence

Questions?

http://dboudreau.posterous.com	38
http://paper.li	15
http://twitter.com	1

Managing Accessibility Compliance in the Enterprise

by Karl Groves on Mar 16, 2011

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

3 Embeds 54

Statistics

Managing Accessibility Compliance in the Enterprise — Presentation Transcript