Elsevier, one of the largest international publishers in Science, recently committed to an Accessibility Policy which prescribes web products to adhere to WCAG 2.0.

1. Elsevier Company Accessibility Policy
CSUN 2013 WEB-011
Wed Feb 27, 2013 Mohsen AB
CSUN Conference  February 28  Tripp Narup  Ted Gies

2. Why should journals and books be accessible?
2
This Is For Everyone London Olympics Opening Ceremony
Sir Tim Berners Lee @ 1:17:30

3. Who Are We?
3
Tripp Narup t.narup@elsevier.com
 Day Job: Digital book archive manager
 Tie to Accessibility:
“Yes, we’ve got that book in digital format,
Sure, same day, no problem.”
 Chair of the Policy Task Force
 CSUN: 1st year, 2 talks this year
Ted Gies t.gies@elsevier.com
 Day Job: Principal UX Designer and Researcher
 Tie To Accessibility: “Accessibility is just good
usability and for us it is responsible publishing.”
 Chair of Reed Elsevier Accessibility Working Group
 CSUN: 2nd year, 2 talks this year

4.  About Elsevier
 Accessibility Working Group
 About our Accessibility Policy
 Challenges and Solutions
 Status of the Policy Efforts
4
Get Ready to Learn About Elsevier’s Accessibility Journey

5. 5
Elsevier…
 is the premier global Health and Science publisher.
 is headquartered in Amsterdam.
 publishes thousands of books each year.
 publishes over 2,500 journals.
 created the web-based products ScienceDirect and Scopus.
 employs over 7,000 people in 24 countries.

6. User Centered DesignThe Digital Book Archive
We have been committed to accessibility for many years
6
 4000 files delivered to disability
services offices in 2012
 1st accommodation fulfilled for
Sue Roseberry (2001);
Assistive Technology Center,
College of San Mateo, CA
 Founding member of
AccessText Network
 50 Full Time Employees
 Focus on creating usable and
accessible products
 Create VPATs, WCAG reviews
 Apply ARIA, WCAG 2.0
 Addressing web accessibility
roadblocks like Captchas

7. Universal AccessOperations
We have been committed to accessibility for many years
7
 Application of standards
into publishing
 EPUB2, EPUB3, Tagging
PDFs, MathML,
 “XML first” workflows
 Special team in Strategy
 Works on: Open Access,
TIGAR, Enabling
Technologies
 Owns the accessibility
policy (and many others)

8. Elsevier Accessibility Working Group
 Share best practices and knowledge of disability, assistive technology
(since 2005), in CR report since 2006
 Presented over 20 webinars on accessibility and disability
 Several internal news stories on accessibility
 Accessibility Matters - 28 page booklet sent to 60 offices worldwide
 Recognized in by JISC 2010 Publisher Award for Accessibility
8

9. 9
Disability & impact on using Computers and the Web

10. 10
Print Disability: Serving Authors and Students

11. ELSEVIER ACCESSIBILITY POLICY
The Policy Creation Process
11

12.  Customers and users want accessible books and journals
 Vested interest in widening our user base and attracting
content, reviewers, and authors
 Provide a nudge to internal product teams
 Responsible publishing of quality products – “This is for Everyone”
 Shift from print to digital
We realized need for an Accessibility Policy
12

13. Creation of Accessibility Policy Task Force
 Support from Universal Access and Upper Management
 Official email invite to nominate a task force representatives
 Delegates from across business and operations helped design policy
13
• Health Sciences
Product Management
• Management
• Publishing
• Finance
• Legal
• Science and Technology
Product Management
• Books
• Journals
• Operations
• UX/UCD

14. Elsevier Accessibility Policy Task Force
14
“We are doing this because we have a
variety of customers and some of them
happen to have disabilities.”
-Linda Duncan
-VP & Publisher, Health Professionals

15. Policy Construction Process
 Divided into sub working groups
 Industry accessibility best practices
 Physical accessibility* laws
 Print disability law
 Third party supplier standards
 Web accessibility
 Inventory of our sites
 Several rounds of review and iteration using web
conferencing before final approval
 Final approval by upper management committee in Jan 2012
15
*Physical accessibility was excluded from the policy since each international location each had
hardened laws and felt that would dilute focus of policy and expand complexity

16. Elsevier Accessibility Policy
16
View Elsevier’s Accessibility Policy:
http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-policies/accessibility-policy

17. What’s in the Policy?
 Main Idea: All products should be accessible to people with
disabilities and comply with Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines (WCAG 2.0).
 Scope: Print products, internal and external websites
and tools, eBooks, partners and suppliers
 Benchmark: WCAG 2.0 (A)
 Outreach: We partner with the industry experts
 User Centered Design: Apply UCD best practices
 Timeline: From 2013 onwards, reviews every 3 years
17
View Elsevier’s Accessibility Policy:
http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-policies/accessibility-policy

18. ELSEVIER ACCESSIBILITY POLICY
Challenges and Solutions
18

19. Challenges with Policy Rollout (1)
 Demonstrating business case
 “Why should I care about accessibility, there aren’t any blind doctors.”
 Large company with diverse development practices
 “We use the agile development, so you better not hand me a list of 10
pages of accessibility documentation to follow.”
19

20. Challenges with Policy Rollout (2)
 WCAG 2.0 not the easiest guidelines to communicate
 Business/Product Management:
“Show me the business case.”
“Show me how compliant we are compared to competitors.”
 Developers: “Show me the code.”
 UX: “I’ve shown you all of that. Wait a minute, how do I map the
recommended code to the WCAG2.0 checkpoints?“
20

21. Solutions to Challenges
 Demonstrating business case
 Collect customer RFP requests with accessibility
 Create a working group to educate and interest product teams
 Piggy back on User Centered Design
 Large company with diverse development practices
 Flexibility, adaptability
 WCAG 2.0 not the easiest guidelines to communicate
 Create simple looking templates to benchmark
 Separate pass/fail from the detailed checkpoint assessment
 Some teams just want the recommendations
 Start with the basics (Well structured HTML)
21

22. 22
UCD WCAG 2.0 Review Template

23. 23
Search forms (document, author, affiliation, advanced)
Fails WCAG 2.0 > 1.3.1 (A): Info, structure and relationships can be
programmatically determined
Issue: The HTML on this page has no semantic structure. When styles are
applied, it is obvious (visually) that the selected tab (shown in bold and a
much larger font size) is the currently selected search form. Without any
styling (CSS), this is not clear; the page has no main header.
Recommendations: Use the <h1></h1> tag to identify the page header.
Recommended priority: High
Estimated effort: Small
UCD WCAG 2.0 Review Template

24. 24
Accessibility Product Dashboard

25. ELSEVIER ACCESSIBILITY POLICY
Policy Rollout and Progress
25

26. What is Elsevier’s progress on the policy?
 Overall we are still in the plan and requirements stages for most
web products and internal tools
 We aspire to have sustained accessibility in all of our sites
 ScienceDirect has achieved sustained accessibility with new
features
26
Plan Requirements Review Implement Sustain
Determine
opportunity for
accessibility
release
Prioritize sites
Product managers
author
requirement to
follow W3C
WCAG 2.0 A
standard
UCD Conducts
Review Against W3C
Standards
Test with users who
use assistive
technology
Development team
implements
suggestions.
UCD helps conduct
QA
Accessibility is baked
into process:
• requirements
• development tools
• QA
• code/web
components
Accessibility Policy Engagement Model

27. What are examples of policy wins?
 At least 10 WCAG 2.0 reviews completed
 Reed Elsevier Supplier Management has included WCAG 2.0,
Section 508 requirements in our RFPs
 Elsevier vendors to follow accessibility requirements including
Health Advance platform and journal editorial system
 Nursing Skills DVD requirement for audio descriptions
 Budget allocated to tackle accessibility and usability (MC Strategies)
27

28. ScienceDirect - going above and beyond
28
 Collaboration with University of Illinois, Indiana Univ, and Michigan
State to help test features before releases
 Developed best practices to be used across Elsevier
 Development team expects accessibility in each release
 ScienceDirect article of the future accessibility
 ARIA landmarks
 ARIA labels
 Good structure (headings, lists)
 Keyboard Operability
 Logical tab order

29. ELSEVIER ACCESSIBILITY POLICY
Policy Next Steps
29

30. What is planned for 2013?
 Capturing the hearts and minds of our 7000 staff
 Training of staff in Web Accessibility, WCAG 2.0.
 Several WCAG 2.0 reviews scheduled
 Release of more accessible Math (MathJAX/MathML)
 EPUB3 template creation and accessibility check
 PDF Tagging Upgrades
 Several accessibility enhancements to sites including
 Book editorial system
 Corporate intranet
 College of Direct Support LMS system
30

31. Elsevier wants to collaborate with you!
 We need the help of industry experts and usability testers
 You are invited to join our web accessibility collaboration
 See me after the talk or email me at: t.gies@elsevier.com
 Current Elsevier Accessibility Collaborators:
 University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
 Indiana University
 Michigan State
31

32. Where to learn more
 Elsevier Company Website
http://www.elsevier.com/
 Elsevier Accessibility Policy
http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-policies/accessibility-policy
 Disability Request form for Elsevier titles
http://elsevier6.custhelp.com/app/disability/p/8045
 Elsevier Accessibility/Usability Collaboration
http://collaborate.athenpro.org/group/elsevier/
 AccessText Network
http://www.accesstext.org/
Contact Ted at t.gies@elsevier.com Contact Tripp at t.narup@elsevier.com
32