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Re: Dealing with accessibility issues in web development service contracts

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From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Feb 12, 2012 9:00AM

Hi everyone

Thanks for your responses.
Elle, I would be excited to sit down with you and others at Access U
to discuss the matter.
The contract was very lacking in specifications of accessibility and
how it would be tested, there was merely a very general statement that
the site should be accessible without any specifications as to what
exactly that entailed. Iceland is simply so new to this that I am the
only authority on the matter (and I have lots to learn myself).
Any samples of contract language, what would be satisfactory testing
etc, would definitely be much appreciated and, yes, I realize more and
more that this is perhaps better handled in dialog than through email.
Per my experience, so far, I'd probably assume WCAG 2.0 AA, with a few
exceptions (I like the recent WebAIM blog on WCAG 2.0 considerations),
I would probably have to allow for a few WCAG evaluator errors, as we
know that WCAG 2.0 compliance by itself is not entirely indicative of
usability, and there are, perhaps, a few problems in automated
checking.
I'd also want to go through the 2 or 3 most commonly performed tasks
or processes on that particular website with a screen magnifier and
two screen readers (NVDA, most recent, and second to most recent sr,
probably Jaws), and demand necessary fixes to problems discovered in
these processes be implemented as part of the service contract.
Are requirements along these lines something frequently put into
development contracts?
You often get organizations that are, on the surface, very committed
to accessibility, but lack detailed directions of what is meant by
that.
Are there any samples of actual development contract statements out
there regarding the definition of accessibility, or anything people
would be able and willing to share as blueprint?
Cheers
-B

On 2/12/12, Jared Smith < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Birkir-
>
> Trying to force accessibility into a complex project after it has been
> developed can be very difficult and, as you note, expensive. We have
> worked with a few clients who decided that it would be more
> cost-effective to simply re-build the site with accessibility
> requirements (and a new design, other web standards, best practices,
> etc.), rather than continue the often never-ending battle of
> implementing accessibility hacks and fixes into a site that does not
> support them and that is administered by third party vendors who don't
> care about or understand accessibility.
>
> In one case a client was quoted a 7 digit number to implement
> accessibility alone (which, by the way, was absurdly over-priced). The
> price to rebuild the entire site with a knowledgeable vendor and also
> include accessibility was only a bit more. It was an obvious decision
> to start over.
>
> Most sites only last a few years. If you're considering a significant
> update or rebuild in the future, you may be better off waiting. If
> not, the cost efficiency of your site updates will be proportional to
> the accessibility knowledge of your vendor, so you might start with
> educating them rather than asking them to implement accessibility
> items they likely will not understand (but are happy to charge an
> hourly rate to attempt to implement).
>
> Jared Smith
> WebAIM.org
>