TCUK 2013 - Digital accessibility: Strategy, content and delivery

@LEONIEWATSON HTTP://LJWATSON.CO.UK@LEONIEWATSON HTTP://LJWATSON.CO.UK

DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY, STRATEGY & CONTENT

DELIVERY

Léonie Watson

@LEONIEWATSON HTTP://LJWATSON.CO.UK

OVERVIEW

● Importance● Benefits● Strategy● Content delivery● Technical communication


DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY: IMPORTANCE


IMPROVES COMMUNICATION

● Information about your products and services will reach millions more people


MINIMIZES LEGAL RISK

●Meet your obligations under UK, European and international legislation


BRAND REPUTATION

● Digital accessibility positively promotes your brand reputation


DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY: BENEFITS


YOU BENEFIT

● Communicate more effectively with many more people


WE BENEFIT

● People with disabilities, or with a temporary loss of ability


EVERYONE BENEFITS

● Everyone is a niche audience, with multiple platforms, devices and assistive technologies


DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY: STRATEGY


POLICY & GOVERNANCE

● Define your digital accessibility goals and a timetable for achieving them


DOMAIN CHAMPIONS

● People with experience and knowledge of digital accessibility


EVERYONE'S RESPONSIBILITY

● Professional pride, professional development, and quality metrics


GUIDELINES & RESOURCES

● Training, guidelines, frameworks and libraries


DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY: PROJECT MANAGEMENT


WATERFALL PROJECTS

● Include accessibility requirements in your brief

● Build in key stage accessibility checks throughout the project

● Test at key stages with disabled people from your target audience

●Make "go live" dependent on accessibility requirement sign-off


AGILE PROJECTS

●Make accessibility a prerequisite of task completion

● Build light accessibility checks into every sprint

● Test after milestone sprints with disabled people from your target audience

● Iterate based on outcomes of checks and testing


DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY: CONTENT DELIVERY


DELIVER CROSS-CHANNEL

● Communicate through different channels, and over different social networks


KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

● 45 to 64 year olds are the fastest growing social networking demographic


BE RECOGNISABLE

●Make it easy to identify your brand, and create trust through brand recognition


MAKE IT EASY

● Communicate simply, clearly and visibly


DIGITAL ACCESSIBILITY: TECHNICAL

COMMUNICATION


HEADINGS

● Create a consistent structure with a logical hierarchy


LISTS

● Group two or more related items into lists

● Use bulleted, numbered and definition lists


LANGUAGE

● Use plain and simple language, and short sentences

● Explain subject matter words and phrases


ABBREVIATIONS

●Write phrases in full with the abbreviation or acronym in parenthesis

● Use the abbreviation or acronym freely after that


IMAGES

● Use images to help people understand complex themes

● Describe images so everyone can enjoy them


LINKS

● Use link text that can be understood in isolation

● Use the name of the chapter, page or website that the link leads to


SUMMARY

● Understand that digital accessibility is important

● Know that digital accessibility benefits everybody

● Put in place a digital accessibility strategy

●Make digital accessibility part of every project

● Use digital accessibility to communicate effectively


THANK YOU!

Design

TCUK 2013 - Digital accessibility: Strategy, content and delivery