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Thread: Internal tool accessibility justifications

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Number of posts in this thread: 7 (In chronological order)

From: mhysnm1964
Date: Mon, Sep 25 2017 1:23AM
Subject: Internal tool accessibility justifications
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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

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Mon, Sep 25 2017 6:36AM
Subject: Re: Internal tool accessibility justifications
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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.

From: mhysnm1964
Date: Mon, Sep 25 2017 5:03PM
Subject: Re: Internal tool accessibility justifications
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Tim,


Thanks for the information, I honestly didn't look at the archives.

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Mon, Sep 25 2017 6:57PM
Subject: Re: Internal tool accessibility justifications
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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 ADDRESS REMOVED = < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Tim,
>
>
> Thanks for the information, I honestly didn't look at the archives.
>
>

From: mhysnm1964
Date: Mon, Sep 25 2017 8:30PM
Subject: Re: Internal tool accessibility justifications
← Previous message | Next message →

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.

From: Marissa Goldsmith
Date: Tue, Sep 26 2017 7:30AM
Subject: Re: Internal tool accessibility justifications
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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 ADDRESS 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.
>
>

From: Judith Blankman
Date: Tue, Sep 26 2017 12:57PM
Subject: Re: Internal tool accessibility justifications
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I agree that Universal Design principles that Marissa points out are good examples of how to simply make life better for everyone when creating solutions for specific needs, whether physical or cognitive.

A person's disability doesn't have to negatively impact their productivity or value to a company. Anything that can support them is a good measure of a company's ability to be productive, even innovative.

We are all getting older. Anyone who might not be able to empathize might try to look into the future and imagine themselves as their parents, grandparents or other elder relatives. It's important to help a business understand that people still need to be employed as they age and that their wisdom and experience should be highly valued.

Be an employer of choice for everyone. It's good for business, the community and humankind.


Best,

Judith Blankman




From: WebAIM-Forum < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > on behalf of Marissa Goldsmith < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Reply-To: " = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = " < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Date: Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 6:31 AM
To: " = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = " < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Internal tool accessibility justifications

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




<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=icon>
Virus-free.
www.avast.com
<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=link>
<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

Marissa Goldsmith
www.marissagoldsmith.com
@mjgoldsmith


On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 10:30 PM, < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS 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.