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The six simple components of accessibility conformance

Accessibility doesn’t happen automatically. And it’s astonishingly rare to find it taken seriously even in the digital, software and marketing sector where we’re blessed with brilliant resources and initiatives such as W3C, WAI, WCAG and ISO/IEC 30071-1.

Let’s be clear: Accessibility is a requirement, not a feature. It’s the law pretty much everywhere, and is recognised as a fundamental human right in every nation you’re likely to want to hang out.

But there’s a perception accessibility is hard and expensive to do. It needn’t be.

ISO/IEC 30071-1 is a brilliant thing to aim for, and you should, but what if you’re just looking for somewhere to start? All you really need to get going is some structure: some simple-to-implement and firm foundations for weaving accessibly into day-to-day operations.

Each asset (website, app etc) should aim to have the following accessibility conformance components:

  1. Accessibility Officer (board level responsibility for all assets)
  2. Accessibility Owner (for each asset)
  3. Accessibility Promise
  4. Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Report
  5. Accessibility Statement
  6. Accessibility Actions

Accessibility Officer

The Accessibility Officer is is someone with board level responsibility for obtaining and maintaining accessibility conformance across the organisation.

The seniority of the role is necessary to ensure accessibility conformance remains a serious, central goal of the organisation. As well as being in an appropriate position of influence, the seniority of the role sends a clear and positive message to all stakeholders.

Accessibility Owner

Each asset should have an Accessibility Owner who has day-to-day responsibility for obtaining and maintaining accessibility conformance for their appointed asset.

In very small organisations, one person could assume the role of both Officer and Owner. However, in an organisation with multiple assets it would be necessary to appoint different individuals with domain knowledge and practical influence to look after each asset.

The Accessibility Owner could be a newly-created role, or the responsibility could be added to existing Product Owner or User Experience Designer type roles.

Accessibility Promise

It’s important everyone in the organisation is aware of the level of conformance being aimed for. An example might be: “We aim for all our assets to conform to WCAG 2.1 AA as a minimum”.

In most cases, the promise would be set at an organisational level for everyone to follow consistently. Occasionally, individual assets may have different sector or international conformance requirements. Either way, the promise must be clearly communicated internally, to users and to other stakeholders.

Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Report

Maintaining an up-to-date accessibility conformance evaluation for each asset is a crucial tool in obtaining and maintaining conformance. It should be in the form of a comprehensive evaluation of the conformance criteria appropriate to meet the accessibility promise.

Reviewing the report regularly will make sure any changes to accessibility conformance – recent fixes or new problems – are properly documented and any necessary actions are put in place.

If you’re looking for a simple and useful way to record your evaluations, try my accessibility evaluation spreadsheet.

Accessibility Statement

An accessibility statement is a public-facing document intended to inform users of the state of accessibility in an asset. It must be honest, unambiguous and accessible in its own right.

The statement – which is a legal requirement for UK public sector bodies – should state how to get in touch with the Accessibility Officer, tell the user the organisation’s aim in the form of the Accessibility Promise, and be clear about the level of conformance – especially where there are known non-conformances.

This allows a user to make an informed judgement about whether the are likely to be able to use your asset, and provides a point of contact for feedback.

Accessibility Actions

None of the other accessibility conformance components are much use if there aren’t meaningful actions created and followed through with.

The Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Report is likely to be the principal source of actions. Each non-conformance or observation can be turned into practical tasks for design, engineering, testing or research.

It is possible some non-conformances will require multiple individual tasks and the involvement of a range of skilled disciplines to resolve. It is therefore crucial actions are properly created and nurtured through to completion. In many cases, it will make good sense to include these actions in the normal day-to-day ways of working employed by individual teams – ensuring proper resource planning and quality control.

Summary

Doing accessibility isn’t hard and needn’t soak up huge amounts of resource. At its heart is giving the right people in your organisation responsibility for making it happen, with clear and simple objectives.

Then, so long as appropriate tools and training are in place, accessibility conformance should quickly become a normal, required and worthy element of everyone’s day-to-day work.