Presentation by Jonathan Hassell to tilgjengelighetsdagen 2013 (Universal Design Day 2013), Oslo, Norway

1. How can websites comply with accessibility legislation
and win more users?
Prof Jonathan Hassell, Director of Hassell Inclusion & Lead-author of BS 8878 (@jonhassell)
tilgjengelighetsdagen 2013
24th October 2013

2. The current pain…
• Most organisations are terrified about accessibility.
• They don‟t understand people who are disabled… who always seem to
ask for the impossible… at crunch times in a website‟s time-constrained
development.
• They feel whatever they do is probably not enough, but don‟t know how far
they need to go, especially when it comes to mobile app accessibility.
• And they don‟t know if there‟s anything in it for them other than risk
mitigation.
• Worse, if they get anything right, it‟s usually only for one product,
or one version of a product…
• Or it‟s because of one committed, passionate individual whose eventual
departure leaves them needing to start all over again.

3. Where they want to be…
„what I want is to strategically embed inclusion
into [my organisation’s] culture
and business-as-usual processes,
rather than just doing another inclusion project‟
Most common request
from Heads of Diversity & Inclusion
Vanguard Network 2011

4. I help get them there…
•
•
•
>10 years experience in accessibility and inclusion
lead author of British Accessibility Standard BS 8878
former Head of Usability & Accessibility, BBC Future Media
•
•
•
Product Manager of innovative, award-winning products:
•
•
•
•
led work to embed accessibility across
BBC web, mobile and IPTV production teams
won BIMA 2008 & Access-IT@Home awards for the accessibility
features of BBC iPlayer
won IMS Global Learning Impact Award 2010 for MyDisplay
won „Best Usability & Accessibility‟ BIMA 2006 for My Web, My Way
3 x Bafta-nominated for rich-media eLearning projects using
breakthrough accessibility technologies for disabled children
Advisor to:

5. 1
Current situation
in Norway?

6. Your regulations now require you to do this…
So accessibility is now a legal risk

7. But, without thinking of the people you‟re helping,
it‟s not exactly exciting…

8. It‟s rather like this…

9. Reframe the accessibility conversation… find the up-side…

10. If the only people to benefit are those with disabilities,
it‟s not going to work…

11. It‟s definitely going to benefit accessibility service providers

12. It needs to benefit digital agencies and IT providers

13. It needs to benefit digital tool providers

14. It needs to benefit website owners

15. It needs to benefit Norway

16. 2
Benefits to agencies

17. Your regulations clarify the value of accessibility
to website owners in Norway

18. As accessibility is not a competence of all agencies,
it could become your Unique Selling Point

19. And accessibility, when thought of in the right way,
builds on top of your existing UCD competencies

20. 3
Benefits to tool owners

21. As most sites are made with tools, your regulations clarify the
value of accessibility to procurers of CMSes etc.

22. Other web tool‟s lack of accessibility could become a procurement
barrier in Europe and the USA

23. ✔
“the current 508 has a pretty large
loophole for commercial nonavailability.
If the vendors are not supporting
accessibility in a robust way, there is
nothing else that can be asked for under
508.”
Bruce Bailey, FCC working on 508
refresh…
As accessibility is not a competence of all tools,
it could become your USP
?

24. Opportunity: fulfilling client
requirements – USP
•
positively differentiating your product
from others when selling into
organisations, esp. public-service
ones withDisability Equality
Schemes
“Arts Council England’s approach is to continue
to involve disabled people in
our work to highlight the barriers experienced
by a diverse range of disabled people, and for
disabled people to assist us in identifying how
to effectively remove those barriers.”

25. 4
Benefits to website owners

26. Yes, you may get better SEO (see Agnete Tøien Pedersen)

27. Yes, accessibility may have „created‟ responsive design
(see Andrew Clarke)

28. Yes, accessibility may help promote user-centred design
& user-testing (see Anita Fjeldås)

29. But there‟s
much more
to win…

30. The ethical business case…
•
•
achieving best-practice for ensuring
disabled people are not excluded
from the benefits of modern digital
technologies
whole world is rapidly aligning with
this
• via adoption of UN Convention
on the Rights of Disabled
People
• 153 international signatories
currently
UN Convention: http://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/conventionfull.shtml

31. Opportunity: brand value
•
making sure your sites and services are inclusive can benefit:
•
•
your brand values & corporate social responsibility
your ability to hire diverse range of staff

32. Opportunity: the commercial business case
– maximising reach
20%
of Norwegians aged 16+ had a
limiting long-standing illness or
disability
12.3%
of Norwegian adults attain only
Level 1 or below in literacy
Sources: http://www.disability-europe.net/content/aned/media/Norway%20-%20ANED%20country%20profile.pdf,
http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/Country%20note%20-%20Norway.pdf

33. In the future “they” are “we”

34. And our numbers are growing rapidly

35. OXO Good Grips – the market for inclusive design
• Well-known pioneer of Inclusive Design in
the USA
• Sam Farber‟s wife, a keen cook, suffered
from arthritis
“Why do ordinary kitchen tools hurt your
hands?”
• First 15 products launched in 1990
• Sales growth over 35% per year from 1991 to
2002
• The line has now grown to over 500
products
• Over 100 design awards received
Centre for Business Innovation
“Connected Communities, helping you Do more with Less”
- 35 © 2011 Centre for Business Innovation Ltd
Engineering Design Centre

36. Opportunity: the commercial business case
– minimising complaints

37. Opportunity: the commercial business case
– audience diversity => creativity

38. 5
Benefits to Norway…
if you continue on your universal
design journey

39. WCAG 2.0 AA is a good start… but it won‟t win you the race

40. WCAG 2.0‟s convenient to measure & monitor…

41. But for some sites it‟s impossible to achieve…

42. It doesn‟t cover mobile (browser or apps) well at all…

43. And it doesn‟t guarantee to deliver accessibility or universal design

44. 6
So what do you need
to secure the benefits
of universal design?

45. You need solutions that are strategic, not piecemeal and tactical

46. Or you‟ll still do how most do accessibility:
ignore it… then all hands to the pump on remediation…

47. But to fix it,
you don‟t just need to do this…
You also need to do this…

48. And you need to fix the problem in the process, not the product,
to prevent it re-occurring

49. Snr Mgrs
Finance
Legal
Project Mgrs
Developers
Designers
Marketing
Strategy
Product Mgrs
Writers
Research & Testers
You need to make everyone involved in making your products
engaged and responsible, not just the „accessibility superhero‟

50. We were having all these problems in the UK…

51. Something else was needed…
"The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2 (WCAG 2.0) try to address
some of these emerging accessibility issues but their complex nature
makes it difficult for web designers and programmers to implement.
Guidance on implementing WCAG 2.0 should be introduced to
make clearer to website designers exactly how these guidelines apply to
them, and how the decisions that web designers take to address
accessibility issues actually affects disabled people using the website".
Consumer Expert Group report
into the use of the Internet
by disabled people: barriers and solutions
October 2009
Source: http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/dundeecity/uploaded_publications/publication_1679.pdf

52. All of these people worked hard to come up with…
Created by accessibility experts Reviewed publicly worldwide by:
from:
• 328 accessibility experts
worldwide
• incl: experts in
personalisation, aging, mobile
accessibility, IPTV, inclusive
design, usability, userresearch and testing,
disability evangelism
Training already delivered to:

53. +
=
+
BS 8878: embedding motivation – competence – process

54. The accessibility of your products
is in all these people‟s hands…
Snr Mgrs
Finance
Legal
Project Mgrs
Developers
Designers
Marketing
Strategy
Product Mgrs
Writers
Testers

55. Embedding responsibility
•
•
•
Work out whose
responsibility accessibility
should ultimately be…
Make sure they delegate
(and monitor results) well
Make sure those delegated
to are trained in their Finance
responsibilities
Snr Mgrs
Legal
Project Mgrs
Developers
Designers
Marketing
Strategy
Product Mgrs
Writers
Testers

56. Embedding through
strategic policies
Snr Mgrs
Finance
•
•
Legal
Marketing
Strategy
create an Organizational Web Accessibility Policy to strategically embed accessibility
into the organization’s business as usual
Project Mgrs
Product Mgrs
including where accessibility is embedded in:
•
•
•
web procurement policy
web technology policy
web production standards
(e.g. compliance with WCAG, browser support, AT support)
Designers
Developers
Writers
Testers

57. 1st stage:
The right
research
& thought
before you
start
1. Purpose
2. Target audiences
3. Audience needs
4. Preferences & restrictions
5. Relationship
6. User goals
2nd stage:
Making
strategic
choices
based on
that
research
7. Degree of UX
8. Inclusive cf. personalised
9. Delivery platforms
10. Target browsers, OSes, ATs
11. Create/procure, in-house/contract
12. Web technologies
3rd stage:
Production,
launch,
update
cycle
13. Web guidelines
14. Assuring accessibility
15. Launch information
16. Post-launch plans
Embedding through a process: BS 8878‟s process in 88 seconds

58. BS 8878 has given us a framework
to help reduce costs and improve
our quality when delivering
accessible web products for our
customers.
Rob Wemyss
Head of Accessibility
Royal Mail Group

59. Web Products
(internet, intranet, mobile apps, IPTV Not just web sites
widgets, SaaS etc. etc.)

60. Choosing the right guidelines for
your product & audience…
Not making your product contort
itself to fit one set of guidelines…

61. http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/futuremedia/accessibility/mobile_access.shtml
http://www.funkanu.com/en/Our-approach/Information-web-and-IT/Rules-and
guidelines/Mobile-accessibility-guidelines/
For example:
the best current mobile accessibility guidelines aren‟t WCAG 2.0

62. Using WCAG 2.0 for what it‟s good at Not what it isn‟t
(how to get there)
(have we arrived?)

63. •
•
every decision taken will
affect whether the product
will include or exclude
disabled and elderly
people
so every decision should
be:
–
–
–
–
•
Replacing ticking boxes…
recognised as a decision
have all options and
implications considered
made based on justifiable
reasoning
noted in the Web
Product’s Accessibility
Policy for transparency
at every step of the
process
With an informed way of making good
decisions throughout your dev process

64. Enriching
universal/inclusive design
with user-personalized
approaches…

65. OXO Good Grips – the market for inclusive design
• Well-known pioneer of Inclusive Design in
the USA
• Sam Farber‟s wife, a keen cook, suffered
from arthritis
“Why do ordinary kitchen tools hurt your
hands?”
• First 15 products launched in 1990
• Sales growth over 35% per year from 1991 to
2002
• The line has now grown to over 500
products
• Over 100 design awards received
Building afor Business Innovation
Centre better product…
“Connected Communities, helping you Do more with Less”
not just a compliant one Centre
Engineering Design
- 65 -
© 2011 Centre for Business Innovation Ltd

66. May help to bring back
measures of accessibility ROI
that we haven‟t been able to
measure since web 1.0…

67. Norway:
Regulations
on universal
design of ICT
vs.
UK:
Equality Act
2010
Could it help here?
What differs…
What stays the same…

68. So…
why linger on
the surface
when the
riches are
beneath?

69. Make your organisation feel like this…
•
you‟ll have decided why accessibility is important for your company, set your goals,
benchmarked your competence and planned your journey
•
your company policies will include all you need to ensure accessibility is just „the way we
do things around here‟
•
everyone involved in creating your websites and apps will know what accessibility
expects of them and have competence in applying guidelines to their job-role
•
they‟ll follow a user-centred design process to make products that work for everyone
•
they‟ll be empowered to make product decisions re accessibility, as long as they can
justify them against real-world user-research about your product and audience
•
they‟ll have the freedom to create product variations where users‟ needs diverge
•
they‟ll test products for accessibility, alongside usability, to the level the budget will allow
(and they‟ll be aware of the limited benefits of cheap options)
•
you‟ll be freed from the impossibility of doing everything you could possibly do for v1.0,
as long as you tell your audience why and when they‟ll get what they need

70. Get slides on all 16 BS 8878 steps
www.hassellinclusion.com/bs8878/

71. Book available
from BSI Press
February 2014
email: book@hassellinclusion.com

72. I‟ve training to help you with the heavy lifting…

73. Innovation
Training &
support for
BS8878
Standards
Strategy &
research
www.hassellinclusion.com

74. If I can help you
Please get in touch…
e: jonathan@hassellinclusion.com
t: @jonhassell
w: www.hassellinclusion.com