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Re: Accessibility for Project Managers - your thoughts?

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From: Dr Jonathan Hassell
Date: Sep 25, 2013 3:49PM

Hopefully this is something I can help everyone with...

I know Jeff Kline well and have read his book and discussed it with him often. It is definitely a great book for anyone looking at strategic aspects of web accessibility, and it's main strength is around how to situate the person responsible for accessibility within large organisations (like IBM, which Jeff draws most of his experience from).

You can find my captioned video interview with Jeff, discussing his book and comparing it with the British Standards for Accessibility Strategy BS 8878, which I was lead-author of, at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3TA3WtEwc

You might also be interested in BS 8878 itself - it's one of the only accessibility Standards in the world that looks at accessibility from a strategic perspective. At its heart is a 16 step process identifying the key steps in a website or app's development lifecycle which most impact its accessibility. I've used this to train many product and project managers in how to effectively manage accessibility. It goes into detail on such issues as: estimating and managing the cost-benefits and challenge of making different types of website (informational, transactional, Software as a Service/Cloud, multimedia etc.) accessible; how to capture accessibility requirements (both quality requirements and specific accessibility functionality) and place them in an Agile backlog; how to plan testing through the project; how to ensure each member of the development team knows what their responsibility is for ensuring their decisions don't unnecessarily exclude disabled or older users (I miss
ed Denis' email but I guess this is the Accessibility Responsibility Breakdown he's after); and how project managers can handle the multiple pressures on a development project, balancing launch deadlines and resource availability with accessibility aims and risk.

It's the most comprehensive guide to accessibility for project managers that I know, and I've trained organisations in countries all round the world in its application... so much so that I'm just finishing writing a book about it at the moment, which should be published in the next 6 months.

For now, you can find more info at: http://www.hassellinclusion.com/bs8878/

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Best regards

Jonathan

--

Prof Jonathan Hassell
Director, Hassell Inclusion

Blog: http://hassellinclusion.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jonhassell

From: "Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessibility for Project Managers - your thoughts?
Date: 24 September 2013 21:02:00 CEST
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Reply-To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >


Don't have my copy of this book with me, but I do back in my office and it's worth a read. Will have to pick it up again and give it another read - it's been a while. I'm surrounded by Project Managers in the government OCIO where I work - hmmm

At any rate, in an effort to add something, aside from idle ponderings, to the discussion, I'm wondering whether anyone has read this book, and whether it might have tips for project managers in it. Strategic IT Accessibility: Enabling the Organization http://www.strategicaccessibility.com/
From: Jennifer Sutton [ <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2013 07:22 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessibility for Project Managers - your thoughts?

Greetings, all:


This discussion has been a timely and valuable one for me.

Stand-alone Checklists, without preparatory background training, make
me nervous. I wonder if other fields look for checklists/quick fixes
as often as some do in the accessibility field. This is more of a
rhetorical question and isn't meant to spark debate -- not at all!
But I wonder whether a project manager who was working with a team of
Agile programmers would expect to be given a checklist, and that
would be good enough.

At any rate, in an effort to add something, aside from idle
ponderings, to the discussion, I'm wondering whether anyone has read
this book, and whether it might have tips for project managers in it.

Strategic IT Accessibility: Enabling the Organization
http://www.strategicaccessibility.com/


Please note that I haven't read it, and I have no affiliation with
Mr. Kline, so I'm not mentioning it in an effort to encourage
everyone to rush out and buy the book.

But it is the main accessibility-related resource I've heard of (in
recent years, anyway) that talks specifically about strategy. If I've
missed something else, I'd be glad to know of it.

I look forward to further discussions on this subject, and I hope
some of you (as I aim to do), will find time to help Denis with the
Accessibility Responsibility Breakdown. That document would be *so*
helpful in my world.

Best,
Jennifer