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Re: Internal tool accessibility justifications

for

From: mhysnm1964@gmail.com
Date: Sep 25, 2017 8:30PM

Thanks, I wanted to find non-legal justification. As these are the items that normally pop-up on my searches and only work in certain countries. USA it works really good but other countries this doesn't occur.

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Sent: Tuesday, 26 September 2017 10:58 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Internal tool accessibility justifications

The business benefits of accessibility are hard to measure (15% of the population has some type of a disability, but there are no studies, as far as I know, that try to objectively put a number on how much improving accessibility impacts demand, business cases are one thing that the accessibility sector has not been able to develop).
The legal case is trong, at least in the U.S. If you google blogs on ADA and web accessibility lawsuits (or check websites like www.lflegal.com and Karl Groves blog on accessibility litigation) you will see the huge increase in accessibility related lawsuits in recent years (I believe over 400 lawsuits have been filed this year, double that of last year).
If the company has employees with disabilities that's another angle on their obligations.

You can mention a lot of situations where accessibility and responsive design intersect (e.g. color contrast helps people viewing content on mobile screens in less than ideal lighting, or that 85% of FAcebook video is watched with sound turned off).

But, honestly, the legal risk and convincing people that accessibility is the right thing to do, pointing out there is a lot of people out there who benefit (even if we have not figurd out how to translate that into profits) is the only strategy I can think of.

Cheers




On 9/25/17, <EMAIL REMOVED> < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Tim,
>
>
> Thanks for the information, I honestly didn't look at the archives.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On
> Behalf Of Tim Harshbarger
> Sent: Monday, 25 September 2017 10:36 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Internal tool accessibility justifications
>
> If your friend does some searches on the archive of this forum, they
> should find plenty of past discussions of this topic.
>
> When it comes to technical benefits of accessibility, those are the
> same for both external and internal applications.
>
> The business benefits mostly boil down to being that accessible
> applications make it possible for employees with disabilities to
> contribute to and participate in the organization fully.
>
> I will add that I think it is a lot easier to create accessible
> applications than it is to purchase them. When your organization is
> designing and developing an application, you have the ability to
> introduce the level of accessibility you want at every step. With
> purchased products, you are at the mercy of what that company may or may not know about accessibility.
> Also, there really isn't any simple way to evaluate a product's
> accessibility claims.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On
> Behalf Of <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2017 2:24 AM
> To: 'WebAIM Discussion List' < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: [WebAIM] Internal tool accessibility justifications
>
> All,
>
>
>
> I am sending this on behalf of a friend. I have done my own research
> into it and only found resources related to public facing web sites or
> tools being sold. The angle they are coming from is for internal tools
> in the company to include accessibility in the development cycle and
> purchasing of third-party products. The products are not only web base. Here is his request:
>
>
>
>
>
> My team has been tasked with creating an document for internal
> consumption on accessibility for internal software, hardware and
> documentation. One of the goals is to stress the important of
> accessibility and to get a buy in from the senior managers in my
> organization. The scope of the document is across all technologies
> used by our employee's. I am aware of the USA, EU, Australian and
> other laws plus the EU accessibility standard, Section 508 standard
> and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines which I am planning to introduce into the document as part of the business and technical benefits.
> The challenge I am finding is finding strong justifications other than
> legal and best practice. As I want to include more convincing benefits
> than legal risks in the document. We are a private international
> company and some of the resources I have seen are very governmental
> focus. Areas of challenge
> are:
>
> . Business benefits for accessibility
>
> . Technical benefits for accessibility
>
> . Purchasing decisions for external tools, internal tools build
> on third-party vendor development environments, in-house software
> built by our own resources.
>
> If anyone has policy, guidance and procedural documents you can share
> or point me too. I would be very grateful. As I am sure this has been
> done before and would help me in my endeavor. If you have any other
> justifications, please also share.
>
>
>
> Sean
>
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >


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