Digital Accessibility Strategy options

We know that many organisations are keen to start or continue their accessibility journey. We often hear that what they don't have is a clear understanding of where to start or how to get buy-in from staff and managers.

We also know that some of the best examples of good practice stall when key people leave an organisation or move to a different role.

Every organisation is at a different place on the accessibility continuum. Some organisations have barely heard of accessibility and do not understand why it matters, or they see it as a "nice to have". Those who try to make improvements typically report push-back from colleagues, managers or senior leaders. Other organisations are well down the road and are modelling good practice. Most are somewhere in-between at various points. Some make good progress and then fall back when key people leave or move to a different part of the organisation.

Embedding accessibility into your ways of working is the best way to mitigate against the risks of regression or an ability to even start. Building accessibility considerations into the entire development life cycle, from ideation through to deployment and maintenance so that it is just how things are done provides a more robust protection against slippage than relying on accessibility superstars, great as they are.

This means that accessibility is a criterion at all stages: concept, design, development, testing, release and maintenance.

A good strategy takes account of where you currently are, where you want to get to and provides a roadmap to get from one to the other. Different solutions will work for you based on your current budget, appetite and capacity to incorporate recommended improvements. Smaller steps lead to larger ones, and if you stay the course, you will see a transformation. More importantly, so will your customers, stakeholders and those you want to engage with in the future.

The options below provide a menu of products which we can provide to help you get started or restarted on your accessibility journey.

Each option includes a short description of what's provided. Most options have a typical minimum and a typical maximum indication of effort. These are indicative since each option will be tailored to your specific requirements. Some clients don't need everything that is included in each option, others want more. Still others prefer to stagger work over time to fit their budget and capacity.

Accessibility Overview

A 2-hour workshop where we can discuss your organisation's strategic accessibility aspirations and suggest quick wins to help you on your way. The session will be supplemented with a short report containing recommendations and some resources you may find helpful. Many organisations will use this workshop as a way to determine which of the more substantial options will be appropriate for them, while others regard it as a means of getting help to take limited but rapid steps forward.

Approximate timeframe

Workshop session plus preparation and report delivery: 6 hours

Accessibility Temperature Check

We will carry out a short written survey of your staff and, if you wish, key stakeholders to discover your priority requirements when it comes to accessibility. Based on responses we will provide recommendations and advice which will help you plan your next steps. We can also run a 1-hour Q&A briefing at the end of the project where you can quiz us about our findings and recommendations. This is particularly helpful to organisations with limited budget and whose staff have limited availability to work with us. It can either be a stand-alone option or be the basis upon which a more detailed gap analysis or maturity assessment may take place in the future.

Approximate timeframe

Survey (including preparation), report with recommendations and 1-hour Q&A briefing: typically around 8 hours and up to 20 hours

Digital accessibility gap analysis

A gap analysis determines whether you have processes in place to enable you to embed digital accessibility in your day-to-day work. Through interviews with your team and reviews of your organisation's documentation, we can advise you how you're doing and what you need to do to improve. We'll give you recommendations that are easy to follow and suggestions to help you take the next step. We can also run a 1-hour Q&A briefing at the end of the project which will give you the opportunity to quiz us about the report. A gap analysis can be as small or extensive as you need, and we will work with you to ensure that the scope of the work matches your budget and capacity to use the information we provide.

Approximate timeframe

Interviews, document review, analysis, reporting and 1-hour Q&A briefing: between 25 and 80 hours depending on scope

Digital Accessibility Maturity Assessment

We can adapt the gap analysis process to benchmark you based on a detailed maturity assessment. This uses the gap analysis to inform a scoring mechanism which will gauge your accessibility maturity level against up to seven separate dimensions. These are:

We can customise the assessment so that only your preferred dimensions are considered. This is particularly helpful to organisations or teams which have no control over some of the dimensions, or who have a very limited budget and want to try out the process on the dimensions most important to them.

Using the information from a gap analysis or maturity assessment, we can work with you to produce a roadmap by which you can implement the recommendations we have made in a way and over a time period that works for your organisation.

Approximate timeframe

Interviews, document review, analysis, maturity assessment scoring, reporting and 1-hour Q&A briefing: between 30 and 80 hours depending on scope

Policy writing and reviewing

We can help you to write a policy which ensures your digital accessibility ambitions are turned into guiding principles for your organisation. We can also review your existing policies and advise how they might be improved to better reflect your accessibility goals.

We can help you with suitable wording which you can feed into your policy process, or we can work closely with your policy development team to iterate the policy document, revising as you go.

Approximate timeframe

Meetings, content preparation, reviewing existing policies and policy templates: between 15 and 40 hours depending on scope

Accessible Procurement

Accessibility is often thwarted early on because inaccessible equipment or public-facing systems have been bought. Procuring accessible systems and digital platforms is a challenge to even the most experienced teams. We will help you to ask the right questions of potential vendors and to know what words to use at all stages of your procurement process, whether you use Requests for quotations or proposals. We will help you to know how to read the responses from potential vendors. We can even suggest clauses you might want to include in contracts when the time comes. We will also advise on policy considerations, assessment of risk and what to do when there is no choice but to deploy an inaccessible solution.

Approximate timeframe

Interviews, document review, analysis of current practices, recommendations and 1-hour Q&A briefing: between 25 and 50 hours depending on scope

Performance Monitoring

Many organisations are driven by a series of KPIs and metrics which help them keep track of how they are doing against a wide range of issues which are important to them. We can help you with devising suitable metrics and KPIs which will allow you to track your accessibility goals. We will meet with key staff to discuss those goals, how your organisation likes to monitor and report generally and capacity to incorporate accessibility metrics and KPIs into the process. We will also review examples of current metrics and KPI reporting so as to ensure our recommendations fit with your organisation's current practice.

Approximate timeframe

Interviews, document review, discussing and recommending specific metrics and KPIs and 1-hour Q&A briefing: between 25 and 50 hours depending on scope

Contact Neil

If you would like to contact Neil Jarvis Consultants, please feel free to do so, either by filling out the form below, by emailing or phoning.

Email: neil@neiljarvisconsultants.com
Phone: +64-21-0653468

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