Presentation on Digital Transformation trends, the risks of the digital accessibility gap becoming increasingly large and orientations for organizations that want to adopt digital accessibility

1. AMAC AccessibilityRicardo Garcia Bahamonde
April 29, 2018
Developments in Accessibility of Information

2. About AMAC: one-stop-shop for Accessibility
Services
:• Braille
• Accessible E-Text (34,000 books)
• ATN Network (2,700 universities)
• Real Time Remote Captioning,
Captioned Media, Audio
Description
• Web Accessibility
• Assistive Technologies
• Student Accommodation
Management (SAM)
• AT Act Program

3. About AMAC
• One-stop-shop for full range of accessibility services
• Complete, timely, efficient accommodations for students with
print-related disabilities.
• Economies of scale for cost savings, competitive prices

4. Corporate, Government, Higher Ed
…everybody moving to Digital
Forrester Research report: “executives
predict that nearly 50% of their revenue
will be driven by digital by 2020”.

5. Why does an organization go Digital?
• Gartner survey: “56% of businesses said that their digital
improvements have already improved profits.”
• Hitachi Consulting research: “9 out of 10 IT decision-makers
claim (old, heavy, clunky) legacy systems are preventing them
from harnessing the digital technologies they need to grow and
become more efficient.”
• The Enterprisers Project: “Customers, employees, people in
general are adopting digital habits in all facets of their lives:
shopping online via mobile devices, e-learning, smart home
applications… they are waiting for all businesses to catch up.”
Source: The Enterprisers Project

6. The Digital Transformation tsunami:
some predictions…
• By 2019, global DT: $1.7 trillion (42% increase from 2017).
• By end of 2018, 40% of organizations will have a fully staffed
digital leadership team.
• By 2019, personal digital assistants and bots will execute
only 1% of transactions, but they will influence 10% of sales.
• By 2020, 25% of global 2,000 companies will have digital
training programs to compete more effectively for talent.
• By 2020, 60% of all enterprises will have fully articulated an
organization-wide digital platform strategy and will be in the
process of implementing that strategy.
Source: IDC Worldwide DX 2018 Predictions Report, November 2017

7. Some successful DT initiatives:
Zara mobile app
Customers at a store may know the store where to a specific clothing and
their size, by scanning the barcode, pay online and avoid waiting in line.
Source: https://abduzeedo.com/weekly-apps-pose-plantogether-pullbear-and-more

8. Some successful DT initiatives:
Lego Ideas
Crowsource the creation of new models and their validation (10,000
likes) as a new Lego product (creator gets 1% of product sales).
Source: https://ideas.lego.com/dashboard

9. Some successful DT initiatives:
Domino’s Pizza Order Online
• from any device (SmartPhone, SmartTv, SmartWatch)
• 50% of all orders are made online.
Source: https://pizzaonline.dominos.co.in/

10. Some successful DT initiatives:
Starbuck’s Order & Pay mobile app
• Users spend 3x more than
average Starbucks
customer
• reduced credit card costs
• orders executed faster.
• loyalty successfully built
through rewards system
• huge customer
engagement through social
media used to collect ideas,
suggestions and feedback.
Source: https://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile-app

11. DT: astonishing opportunity for those
prepared to Transform themselves fast
• “Integration of digital technology into all areas of a
business”
• “A cultural change that requires organizations to continually
experiment and innovate…” (The Enterprisers Project)
• “Closing the gap between what digital customers expect and
what analog businesses actually deliver…” (Greg Verdino)
• “Digitizing assets and increasing the use of ICT to improve
the experience of your organization’s employees, customers,
suppliers, partners and stakeholders.” (The Agile Elephant)
Source: The Enterprisers Project

12. DT: a Cultural organizational change
affecting all stakeholders
“A cultural change that requires organizations to continually
experiment and innovate…” (The Enterprisers Project)

13. …with Customer/User Experience
improvement as THE key goal
• Social media to understand what makes customers happy
(and what not)
• Online communities to advise and build loyalty
• Identifying specific geographies and market segments.
• Analytics to understand customers in more detail, e.g.:
– analytics-based experiments to drive customer behavior
– pricing and promotion experiments to dynamically adjust
product prices in response to demand, weather, inventory
levels, proximity to closing time, etc.
Source: The MIT Sloan Management Review, “The Nine Elements of Digital Transformation”

14. However, if am an Assistive Technology
user…
…..will I be ones of those “Customers”
whose experience is improved???

15. Tying Accessibility to Digital
Transformation plans: huge potential gains
• Accessibility as cross-section element in the whole
value chain: make my tools and processes easier
to use by all users, regardless their abilities
• Social role (benefit society as a whole)
• The “Being digital” state of mind enjoyed by
everybody…
• …and turn it into a huge business opportunity.

16. ICT A11y, Disability, Employment, Growth
• 1 in 5 people have some form of disability.
• Among these:
– 60% are of working age (15-59 years old)
– only 20% currently part of workforce.
• Gartner: advances in technology can enable
350 million more PWD—55% of the currently
unemployed—to participate in the workforce
in the next 10 years, injecting $23bn in the
global economy.
• PWD control $8 trillion in disposable income.
With an aging population, this market is only
growing bigger (one of the fastest-growing
minority groups in the world)
Source: Accesnture, AMPLIFY YOU – How technology can help bridge the digital
divide for people with disabilities, 2017

17. However…
ICT Accessibility hardly present in online searches as compared to DT
Source: Google Trends

18. Risk of increasing the ICT gap…
Increasingly bigger area of utility loss: business opportunity, inclusion…
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Adoption gap
% increase Digital Adoption % increase Digital a11y Adoption

19. Digital Transformation and Accessibility:
Global Lines of Action
• Raise awareness
• Make sure your digital marketing & communications
materials, content and tools are accessible
• Make sure (digital) Omnichannel is accessible (mobile,
ATM, self-service kiosks, website, email, call and
contact center, video tellers, chatbots, social media,
data analytics and automated decision-making)
• Build data analytics to understand customers with
different abilities
• Impact on backend systems…

20. Higher Education: being transformed at
increasing speed….
• Websites and Web-based
applications
• Mobile devices
• Video and audio content
• Electronic documents
• LMS
• Campus-wide administrative
applications
• Lecture capture solutions
• Cloud-based applications
• Email
• Online calendars
• Library resources
• Kiosks….
….the Internet

21. Example of DT in Education and aspects affected
by Accessibility
Source: https://www.promptcloud.com/open-source-learning-management-system/

22. Sequence of actions the student goes through:
1. Logs in
2. Is assigned an individually-configured entry page
3. Choses to open a new assignment work with a certain module;
module is loaded presenting the work to do
4. Chooses different tasks to complete the assignment
5. Searches the portal for resources (documents, etc.) and uses them
to complete his assignment
6. Communicates with fellow students (if assigned to a group work)
7. All the work submitted to teacher has been documented.
Source: Kurt Sandkuhl, Holger Lehmann, “Digital Transformation in Higher Education – The Role of Enterprise Architectures and Portals”. Alexander
Rossmann, Alfred Zimmermann (eds.): Digital Enterprise Computing 2017, Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI), Gesellschaft für Informatik, Bonn 2017
DT in Higher Education: where would accessibility
play a role?

23. • Students with disabilities (in the US) do not self-disclose
• If online INTERFACES are not accessible and/or SWD don’t disclose, no
interaction data (or only partial) can be collected on how learners with
disabilities interact with the interface to:
1. Better understand the learner
2. Send feedback to stakeholders in teaching and learning system.
3. Let the instructor plan accordingly
4. Measure how well the student is doing,
5. Make predictions on how well they would do.
• Result: these students won't receive TARGETED feedback to enhance
the quality of their learning, e.g. AI - tailored practices and exercises
DT in Higher Education: also a potential risk for
many students….

24. Implementing ICT Accessibility in Higher
Education: not just one project…
• Accessibility: process affecting multiple areas/departments.
• Avoid piecemeal approaches
• You need:
 Accessibility Policy
 Accessibility Strategy with clear goals
 Action Plan (timeline, responsibilities, monitoring)
 Leadership and team of champions: ownership and
accountability!!!!

25. • Many moving parts = many challenges
o Technical, Organizational, Legal, Cultural…
• Multi-year initiative
• Speed, scope, and success of strategy execution will depend
on the organization’s:
o “Culture has strategy for breakfast” (Peter Druker)
o Level of top management buy-in
o Current skillsets and training
o Processes
o Budget
o Timeline
Getting down to business: ICT Adoption
Strategy in Higher Ed - Holistic Approach!!!

26. • Involve key contact person/people from the
institution
• Not necessarily someone directly connected to
Accessibility
• A team of key contact person/people from the
institution.
2. Appoint an ICT Accessibility Committee

27. 3. Establish shared Vision and Mission
• Vision: all internal or external users must be
able to utilize ICTs regardless their abilities
• Mission: deliver accessible ICT products,
content and services to all users (internal and
external)

28. • Identify inventory (all external & internal-facing services and
content)
• For each ICT content and service:
– Determine if accessibility audits have been done, and results
– Identify workflow (creating, editing, vetting, publishing,
managing, purchasing…)
– Identify Individuals and Roles: faculty, staff, 3rd party vendors
• For each individual identified and role, identify:
– What is their current knowledge of ICT Accessibility?
– What are their Training Needs?
4. Mapping of ICT Assets to Individuals,
Roles and Training Needs

29. 4.a - Mapping ICT Assets: collecting and
organizing data

30. 4.c - Mapping ICT Assets: analyze data
for Decision-making and Research

31. 5. ICT Accessibility Action Plan:
a - Setting Goals
• Policy created
• Framework created
• Inaccessible ICT content addressed
• Build capacity among all staff and faculty
• Monitoring mechanisms

32. • Prioritize: what must be tackled first
• Determine who must be trained first
• Criteria:
•Lawsuits, complaints
•Most visible content
•Most critical content, etc.
5. ICT Accessibility Action Plan:
b - Setting Priorities

33. 1. Create ICT Accessibility Policy
2. Create ICT Accessibility Framework:
• Baking ICT A11y into key processes and workflows
• Support Team
• Ensure ICT content remains accessible
3. Address Inaccessible ICT content
4. Build capacity among all staff and faculty
5. ICT Accessibility Action Plan:
c - Activities

34. • Set time-based Metrics per goal
• Communicate results
• Maintain records of metrics, processes &
results for possible legal processes
5. ICT Accessibility Action Plan:
d - Measuring and Tracking progress

35. Huge opportunities, also risks
Need for more awareness
Need for a Strategic Plan
Accessibility not a goal, but an HOLISTIC,
ONGOING PROCESS
Accessibility and Digital
Transformation: conclusions

36. Glad to answer your questions!
Ricardo García
Strategic Development Director
AMAC Accessibility
College of Design, Georgia Institute of Technology
ricardo.garcia@amac.gatech.edu
www.amacusg.gatech.edu