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Number of posts in this thread: 8 (In chronological order)

From: Jennison Mark Asuncion
Date: Thu, Jun 05 2014 9:43AM
Subject: internal accessibility guidelines
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Hi there,

Curious to get a feel for how many of you maintain internal
accessibility guidelines or standards (i.e., you have taken WCAG or
other guidelines/standards and massaged them for internal consumption
and use as opposed to pointing folks to what's already out there) for:
1. web development,
2. web design,
3. mobile development,
4. mobile design,
5. other technology(ies development and
6. other technology(ies) design.

Feel free to email me off-list and I am happy to compile (without
mentioning companies/orgs) responses and share results.

Jennison


--
Jennison Mark Asuncion
LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/jennison
Follow me on Twitter www.twitter.com/jennison
Organizer, Bay Area Accessibility and Inclusive Design www.meetup.com/a11ybay
Organizer, Accessibility Camp Bay Area www.accessibilitycampbay.org
Co-Founder, Global Accessibility Awareness Day
www.globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org

From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Fri, Jun 06 2014 12:30PM
Subject: Re: internal accessibility guidelines
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I have seen this done before, and I think you described it correctly when
you said "massaged them for internal consumption and use as opposed to".

As time goes on and technologies change and evolve, the W3C updates best
practices and guidelines accordingly to best fit these new developments, and
AT venders and browsers use these guidelines to ensure that everybody stays
on the same page between developers, browsers, and ATs. This is the only way
to maintain consistency and reliability.

So, the danger in deviating within isolated environments, is that the
customized guidelines will eventually no longer remain synchronized with
what browsers and ATs support.

From: Elle
Date: Fri, Jun 06 2014 8:24PM
Subject: Re: internal accessibility guidelines
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Bryan:

Your concern about internalized standards implies that those organizations
wouldn't also actively be updating them based on their own user research.
In my experience, companies have the ability to respond quicker to a
changing environment (with devices, browsers, and specific user needs) if
they are allowed to approach their accessibility standards in the same
manner as their UX and brand standards.


Respectfully,
Elle



If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood,
divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast
and endless sea.
- Antoine De Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince


On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Bryan Garaventa <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> I have seen this done before, and I think you described it correctly when
> you said "massaged them for internal consumption and use as opposed to".
>
> As time goes on and technologies change and evolve, the W3C updates best
> practices and guidelines accordingly to best fit these new developments,
> and
> AT venders and browsers use these guidelines to ensure that everybody stays
> on the same page between developers, browsers, and ATs. This is the only
> way
> to maintain consistency and reliability.
>
> So, the danger in deviating within isolated environments, is that the
> customized guidelines will eventually no longer remain synchronized with
> what browsers and ATs support.
>
>
>

From: Pratik Patel
Date: Sat, Jun 07 2014 12:23AM
Subject: Re: internal accessibility guidelines
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--- Elle wrote:

Bryan:

Your concern about internalized standards implies that those organizations
wouldn't also actively be updating them based on their own user research.
In my experience, companies have the ability to respond quicker to a
changing environment (with devices, browsers, and specific user needs) if
they are allowed to approach their accessibility standards in the same
manner as their UX and brand standards.

PP: This is quite true. We're working with a large client who has decided to
create an internal standard based on a combination of WCAG 2.0 and other
international standards. We're helping them put together a strategy and a
set of procedures that will allow them to evaluate their standards and dev,
design, and UX guidance every three to six months. This will be done by
evaluating testing results, looking at development, and internal
experiences. They have multiple teams engaged in the process and will
continue to seek feedback to update their documents.

Regards,

Pratik

Pratik Patel
Founder and CEO, EZFire

Support our crowd funding campaign to create the best set of accessibility
and assistive technology training resources on the web. Visit
http://tinyurl.com/a11ytv

From: Bryan Garaventa
Date: Sat, Jun 07 2014 12:46AM
Subject: Re: internal accessibility guidelines
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That's true, I've seen it go both ways actually.

I've also seen situations where UX and business departments make
accessibility decisions unilaterally as the result of pressure from their
marketing department, which didn't end well.

I'm not saying that all companies are like this, but the practice of doing
this is a risk.

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Mon, Jun 09 2014 4:05AM
Subject: Re: internal accessibility guidelines
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I expect the best way to set up internal standards will first depend on if you have to rely on the current organization or if you have the ability to make some changes to the internal organization and culture.

If you could make any changes you want, I expect there are some really great ways to set up internal processes. My favorite would probably include integrating all user interface standards together into a perfect seamless whole. I agree with Elle. An internal standard does have the potential of being able to change more rapidly as long as the process for maintaining and improving the standard is an active one.

I also agree with Brian. If you have internal standards, they are going to be more directly impacted by internal pressures and considerations. That is likely to lead to some compromises. I'm not sure the compromises are all bad, but if you are going to create your standards internally you probably need to think through how to limit the compromises to the good ones.

I think another challenge of creating internal standards is having a full understanding of how the internal standards relate to the external standards. Are you trying to merge multiple external standards? Is your internal standard intended to be an interpretation of an external standard written specifically for your internal audience?

Tim

From: Denis Boudreau
Date: Mon, Jun 09 2014 11:52AM
Subject: Re: internal accessibility guidelines
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Hi everyone,

I have been involved with organizations that implemented their own internal accessibility standards based on existing W3C guidelines, organizations that had tasked me with writing an accessibility standard for them based on those same existing W3C guidelines and finally, organizations that decided to simply align to WCAG 2.0 without any modifications to the requirements language used. Regardless of the strategy used, I can say that the challenges faced usually boil down to the same things.

I have found that generally speaking, it's not so much the technical aspects of accessibility that are difficult to get right or implement. If you are dedicated enough to provide the proper tools and training to your team, developers and other stakeholders will figure it out eventually. It can be a bumpy ride of course, but if your organization is willing to accept that the learning curve takes time and requires efforts,that you won’t get it perfect the first time, and stakeholders are provided with everything they need to be successful, it is totally achievable in the long run.

To me, the main challenges have always been about the mindset, regardless of the policy strategy adopted: when your leadership provides winning conditions - brews the perfect a11y storm - where accessibility compliance and digital inclusion are identified as common cohesive goals do we start seeing a real impact. Before that, at best, it’s going to amount to cumulative isolated efforts that don’t bring any real global results. And none of it is certainly sustainable either.

When there is sufficient upper management buy-in to accessibility, an organization slowly stops thinking about accessibility as a project with a start and end date, and begins to look at it as an ongoing process that can be integrated into the DNS of an organization, just like security and all these other good things managers take seriously. Only when accessibility becomes a program implemented in the organization’s culture does it stand a real chance of success.

That being said, my experience so far tell me that organizations that create their own internal standard tend to be more likely to invest in the effort, because there’s a sense of ownership that goes beyond the simple external requirement. It becomes their baby and as such, somehow seems to have more value.

My $0.05 canadian cents (because we ditched the pennies a while ago).

/Denis



On Jun 9, 2014, at 6:05 AM, Tim Harshbarger < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> I expect the best way to set up internal standards will first depend on if you have to rely on the current organization or if you have the ability to make some changes to the internal organization and culture.
>
> If you could make any changes you want, I expect there are some really great ways to set up internal processes. My favorite would probably include integrating all user interface standards together into a perfect seamless whole. I agree with Elle. An internal standard does have the potential of being able to change more rapidly as long as the process for maintaining and improving the standard is an active one.
>
> I also agree with Brian. If you have internal standards, they are going to be more directly impacted by internal pressures and considerations. That is likely to lead to some compromises. I'm not sure the compromises are all bad, but if you are going to create your standards internally you probably need to think through how to limit the compromises to the good ones.
>
> I think another challenge of creating internal standards is having a full understanding of how the internal standards relate to the external standards. Are you trying to merge multiple external standards? Is your internal standard intended to be an interpretation of an external standard written specifically for your internal audience?
>
> Tim
>

From: Whitney Quesenbery
Date: Mon, Jun 09 2014 2:33PM
Subject: Re: internal accessibility guidelines
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Denis said:
That being said, my experience so far tell me that organizations that
create their own internal standard tend to be more likely to invest in the
effort, because there's a sense of ownership that goes beyond the simple
external requirement. It becomes their baby and as such, somehow seems to
have more value.

I add:
This is true of so many things. Adopting something new, whether it's
accessibility, design standards, new processes, all require some sort of
process in which the team makes it their own. In creating personas, for
example, that process can be almost as important as the final result. Even
if you start from something that exists, the discussion and energy that
goes into making your own version helps you understand it, in your own
context. This is especially true when the concepts and details are new.