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Thread: accessibility staffing question
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From: Mark Guisinger
Date: Tue, Jun 29 2010 2:54PM
Subject: accessibility staffing question
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So, I'm wondering if any one has any good rules of thumb, on how much time on a project should be dedicated to an accessibility resource. 25%? I would greatly appreciate any feedback, references, pointers, etc.
Thanks in advance,
MarkG
From: Jared Smith
Date: Tue, Jun 29 2010 5:33PM
Subject: Re: accessibility staffing question
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On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Mark Guisinger wrote:
> So, I'm wondering if any one has any good rules of thumb, on how much time on a project should be dedicated to an accessibility resource. 25%?
I'd say 100%. If you're treating accessibility of a product as
something separate and discrete from the overall production of a
product, then you're not implementing accessibility optimally. When
accessibility is just a natural part of design and development, it
doesn't cost anything more because you're simply creating an
accessible product, rather than building a product and then trying to
add accessibility to that product.
If you still want to try to quantify things, the accessibility
allocation will generally be inversely proportional to the
accessibility knowledge of those working on the project. Again, as
they understand accessibility and just do it as part of what they do,
it becomes natural to the production process and is quite easy. Good
accessibility training and knowledge will almost always be more cost
effective than trying to allocate distinct accessibility production
time.
If this approach still doesn't suffice for you, then just call it 25%
and I think you'll find this to unfortunately be about right. In other
words, accessibility will always cost more if you approach it as
something distinct.
Jared Smith
WebAIM
From: Langum, Michael J
Date: Wed, Jun 30 2010 9:36AM
Subject: Re: accessibility staffing question
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Jared has a very important point.
But because "mistakes happen," I think there is something to be said for post-production quality testing and (when needed) remediation. The resources required for this will vary with the size of a site, the way the web team is organized, the use of automated tools, and other factors.
-- Mike