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Re: Internal tool accessibility justifications

for

From: Marissa Goldsmith
Date: Sep 26, 2017 7:30AM

I try to preach that anything you do to make your site more accessible is
good for the general population. It works that way in the real world (think
curb cut-outs, automatic doors). It's tough to find solid data, but a few
things ring out:


- Many accessibility best-practices are also in line with a lot of SEO
best practices. Being accessible can help improve your search ranking.
- Think about how we all use closed captioning every day. It's a given
now on a Facebook video - I won't watch one without closed captioning.
Here's an article I read last week about how closed captions benefit all
students - it's not a web article per se, but definitely speaks to the
benefit of closed captioning:
https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/8/a-rising-tide-how-closed-captions-can-benefit-all-students
.
- Here's a good article from NNG on font readability:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/legibility-readability-comprehension/



Marissa Goldsmith
www.marissagoldsmith.com
571-354-7746
@mjgoldsmith




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Marissa Goldsmith
www.marissagoldsmith.com
@mjgoldsmith


On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 10:30 PM, < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> 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
> > > >
>
>
> --
> Work hard. Have fun. Make history.
> > > at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >
> > > > >