>> Anna Skelley: I'm going to tell you a little bit about

 

Kevin. Um, he is the development and

 

operations lead for the web

 

accessibility initiative at the W3C.

 

Um, he has also been he was the head of

 

digital accessibility and user research

 

in the Scottish government. And um, he's

 

here today to talk about or um,

 

organizational accessibility policy. Um,

 

Evan, if you want to share your screen,

 

take it away.

 

Kevin White: Thank you. If I can share my screen,

 

it'll get rid of me looking at me, which

 

is always a bad thing.

 

Two seconds.

 

Anna Skelley: Oh, and I forgot to add everybody, um,

 

if you'd like to ask questions, Kevin's

 

happy to answer them throughout the

 

presentation. Please enter your

 

questions in the Q&A option on the

 

bottom toolbar. Um, and we'll be able to

 

see those questions and screen them and

 

all that. Thank you.

 

Kevin White: Yep. Thank you very much, Anna. Um, very

 

pleased to be here. Um, hello everyone.

 

Um, yeah, I mean, just to reiterate, I

 

am happy to take questions as we go

 

along. Happy to keep it kind of relaxed

 

and um, uh, informal, I'm good with

 

that. So, if there's anything that's

 

kind of uh jumps into your head when I

 

say something, please do feel free to

 

kind of put it in the uh Q&A and I'll

 

see if I can answer it um as we go

 

along. Um so, yes, uh Sharron asked if

 

I fancied chatting about digital

 

accessibility policies and statements.

 

Um and this is all part of their uh be a

 

digital ally um which is a free monthly

 

series that covers basic skills and

 

principles of accessible digital design

 

uh meant for people who work regularly

 

and interact with and create digital

 

content but are new to accessibility.

 

So just to reiterate a little bit about

 

me I'm um back working with the web

 

accessibility initiative in W3C. Um I

 

was there about 8 n years ago um for a

 

couple of years and um then had a 6 or

 

seven year stint in the Scottish

 

government um heading up a variety of

 

different bits and bobs around about uh

 

user center design, digital

 

accessibility and so forth. Um prior to

 

that I've done development jobs and

 

other bits and bolts. Um, there's a

 

photo of me. I'm a

 

late middle-aged um, white male uh, with

 

short gray hair and earrings.

 

Um,

 

cool. Just good one. So, a quick note on

 

language. Um, and apologies in advance.

 

Uh, I use disabled people and people

 

with disabilities kind of

 

interchangeably. Um, in the UK, uh,

 

disabled people's a more common phrase.

 

In the US, I know that people with

 

disabilities is a more common phrase.

 

Um, having kind of looked into this and

 

spoken with some people about it, it's

 

interesting that the social model of

 

disability is used in both cases to

 

say that the other form is incorrect.

 

So, I'm never quite sure which form is

 

correct and I end up bouncing back and

 

forward between the two. Um, so

 

apologies if uh that's not what you

 

would prefer. Um I'm trying to train

 

myself to different um localities.

 

Um so uh starting out. So this is the

 

starting out on kind of digital

 

accessibility policy. And I think I

 

wanted to put this here just because

 

um

 

this isn't something that's kind of just

 

a standalone isolated piece that you

 

will do. This is something that you

 

really need allies for. Um

 

a lot of the work that we do um requires

 

allies um to support what we're doing to

 

persuade people to do things to

 

encourage change whatever it happens to

 

be. Writing a policies um falls slap bang

 

in the middle of that as well. Uh having

 

allies throughout your organization will

 

massively help um when you're trying to

 

deliver against your policy um because

 

it won't just be a sort of a small lone

 

voice um in a massive organization

 

trying to affect change. you will

 

hopefully have a group of people

 

around you and uh throughout the

 

organization who are willing to step up

 

and say that this is important to

 

prioritize it to give it the

 

appropriate resources whatever it

 

happens to be. Um the other thing I

 

wanted to say just kind of on the

 

starting out piece is a lot of this

 

depends on your context. So I'm kind of

 

going to go through a variety of things

 

and I'm going to talk about them. This

 

isn't a one size fits-all. This is it's

 

something that kind of you'll need to

 

kind of look at where you are, what you

 

are doing, what your organization does,

 

how it's structured, all of those sorts

 

of things, and then start to think about

 

the ideas and the principles uh that are

 

behind an accessibility policy and look

 

at how you're going to deliver against

 

that. So bear that in mind when I'm

 

talking through this. You may go, "Hang

 

on a second. That's never going to work

 

where I am." And that's fine. It's um

 

that's not what it's meant for, I don't

 

think. I think it's more about the

 

principles and ideas behind it rather

 

than the specific steps that you're

 

going to take.

 

So, um possibly going to ask a daft

 

question. Um I ask this a lot uh in some

 

in my presentations because a lot of

 

what we talk about now is within the

 

framework of inclusion. uh and there's a

 

an intersectionality and overlap with

 

other inclusion issues which is an

 

important thing to recognize and

 

acknowledge. But I think the other thing

 

that's important to be aware of is that

 

it there that intersectionality

 

sometimes when you are looking at

 

accessibility when you're looking at the

 

needs of disabled people the

 

barriers that per accessibility brings

 

will actually actively exclude people

 

and that can be really problematic.

 

So um when I talk about accessibility, I

 

very much try and talk about um the

 

needs uh or specifically related to the

 

needs of and regulation for people with

 

disabilities.

 

So um I recognize that there are other

 

things and I'm going to touch on that in

 

a wee bit as well. So

 

um and again possibly another stupid

 

question, but um what's a policy? Um,

 

and I think I I'm just uh resorting to

 

the dictionary for this one. Um, because

 

it it was there and um it's a course

 

principle of action adopted or proposed

 

by an organization or individual. Um,

 

and I think the kind of summarizing

 

that for me is very much it's about

 

setting out your organizational intent.

 

So this is this is what we are this is

 

what we are trying to do. Um, now

 

there's aspects of it which may show

 

your history depending on how old your

 

policy is and how much work you've been

 

putting into it over the years, but

 

largely it's about that sense of

 

well this is where we want to be and

 

want to go. Uh, and maybe to a certain

 

extent this is how we're going to do it.

 

Um, so that's what you're trying to

 

capture within your policy. Um, and

 

communicate that.

 

Um,

 

so the title of the talk is kind

 

of accessibility policies and

 

statements. Um,

 

and there's almost a bit of an

 

well just to describe what I'm talking

 

about when I'm talking about an

 

accessibility statement. Um within UK

 

and European legislation,

 

um there is a requirement that all

 

public sector websites should provide uh

 

an accessibility statement. Goes a wee

 

bit beyond that, but they should provide

 

an accessibility statement. And um that

 

statement kind of there's a specified

 

format to it. There's specified content

 

that needs to be in there. It's all very

 

kind of laid down in the legislation. um

 

or at least the policy makers have taken

 

it that it's laid down in the

 

legislation and that's exactly what

 

you've got to deliver against. So that's

 

fine. There is a massive overlap with

 

accessibility policy because there's

 

aspects within that accessibility

 

statement particularly the format which

 

are sort of similar to the sorts of

 

things that you would put in a policy.

 

But the difference that I kind of see or

 

I'm trying to sort of set them up as is

 

that your policy is aiming to capture

 

your intent for your organization and

 

the statements trying to capture and

 

communicate the reality where you are,

 

what you've done, etc., etc. You may not

 

you may have kind of accessibility

 

statements that are more policy

 

documents. There may be some elements of

 

the reality of the situation that you

 

capture in your policy. So you've got a

 

bit of state. It's a bit of an

 

artificial kind of um semantic um

 

definition, but roughly that's how I'm

 

kind of thinking about them. So when I'm

 

talking about policy, it's really about

 

that intent piece, but you might have

 

bits and bobs in an accessibility

 

statement as well.

 

Okay. So um what's your policy for? Uh,

 

and this is an interesting one that it

 

got me thinking and I kind of rattled

 

off a pile of words um that uh I kind of

 

think about when I thought think about

 

developing a policy. Um, and this is in

 

no particular order. Um, uh, so

 

transparency and accountability are kind

 

of um together or sort of overlapping to

 

a certain extent. Um so this is about

 

being transparent with your um

 

customers, with your users, uh with your

 

staff, whoever it happens to be um about

 

what your intentions regarding

 

accessibility are um potentially where

 

you are in terms of accessibility and

 

what you're doing about it. Um the

 

accountability that's related because if

 

you are providing updates within your

 

policy so you might update your policy

 

on a semi-regular basis um as you um

 

learn more as you find out more as you

 

improve things um what you are doing is

 

you are showing that accountability. So

 

you're you're up front you're stating

 

this is what we're going to do and then

 

as time passes you are um reporting

 

against that through your accessibility

 

policy.

 

Um, as I said with the accessibility

 

statement, there's a legal requirement

 

within this and there may well be a

 

legal requirement for your policy um,

 

depending on where you are. Um, the

 

other one is, and this is kind of going

 

into that corporate um, uh, what's it

 

called? Um, social responsibility. Um,

 

and it's to show that you as an

 

organization care about your users,

 

your customers, your staff. again,

 

whoever it is, um, and that you have,

 

uh, are and that you are working to

 

ensure that disabled people have access

 

to the services that you provide, you

 

care about that. You're going through

 

the you've gone through the

 

process of developing a policy. You're

 

thinking about how you're going to

 

implement that policy. That's a that's a

 

kind of positive part of that corporate

 

social responsibility piece.

 

Um

 

I think internally actually thinking

 

about the order I should have probably

 

ordered these a little bit more. Um but

 

that's fine. Um internally um

 

you've got two aspects which are

 

related. So this is the rallying point

 

and the affecting change. So a rallying

 

point is really it gives you something

 

as part of the communications process

 

around about accessibility

 

to point people at to say look this is

 

what we've said we will do as an

 

organization. This is the starting

 

point. This is this is what we want to

 

achieve and we've got backing for

 

this. We've got buying for this and this

 

this is an important part of our policy

 

um landscape. So that's your kind of

 

it's the flag in the sand and the thing

 

you can rally people around and move

 

people forward. And similarly it's

 

a way to kind of bring about and affect

 

change. Um particularly as you start to

 

develop your policy as you start to um

 

act on what's in your policy. You can

 

kind of show what change is happening

 

and how things are improving and that

 

that hopefully will bring about that

 

snowball effect around about these sorts

 

of things. But it's certainly it's all

 

tied up with that rallying point and

 

bringing people together around about

 

that shared idea. Um, sorry, the last

 

one and I should have probably put this

 

one last. There's an element of this

 

which is potentially confessional and

 

this is problematic and there are a few

 

problematic things with accessibility

 

policies which I'll come back to. It's

 

very difficult um for an organization

 

to kind of step up and say actually we

 

don't meet the regulations that are laid

 

out. Um, and this is where we don't meet

 

those like regulations. In as in Europe

 

and the UK, the accessibility statement

 

requires that any failings in

 

accessibility are included in the

 

accessibility statement. So, public

 

sector bodies are basically getting

 

told, you've got to tell people where

 

you're not accessible. Um, we did some

 

research a while back and we were

 

working with disabled people's

 

organizations, disabled people and

 

asking them about the accessibility

 

statement and mostly this is because I

 

didn't actually like the format of the

 

accessibility statement. So I was kind

 

of curious to find out what um people

 

thought of it and one of the interesting

 

things they thought about that

 

confessional um both disabled people's

 

organizations and disabled people was it

 

was useful to know

 

firstly so that they could avoid those

 

parts um and if there were ways around

 

it even better and secondly to know and

 

that that that avoid those parts it's

 

it's kind of like you could tell um

 

people that you report actually this

 

bit's not going to work for you but the

 

rest of it does or you can get around

 

this bit by doing this that or the

 

other. Those can be really useful and

 

that was what we were told. The other

 

bit that was interesting was um a lot of

 

people said well it's good to know that

 

this bit doesn't work so that I don't

 

have to spend time trying to work out

 

whether it's me that's not being able to

 

work it or it's the actual website that

 

just doesn't work. So that confessional

 

and outlining what's not working, it's

 

got an important user component to it

 

that's worth thinking about. But

 

I appreciate that for private

 

organizations that are selling into say

 

a federal market with section 508 and

 

requirements around about um absolute

 

accessibility and so forth. It's very

 

difficult to kind of stand up and say

 

well actually we're not um and then

 

expect federal organizations to still

 

purchase your products. It's very tricky

 

one. Again, I'll come back to some of

 

that um later.

 

Um

 

so the another part of the policy that's

 

important to kind of flag up is um and

 

important to kind of think about it's

 

and it may not be in your policy, but

 

it's certainly around about your policy

 

are the kind of risks associated with

 

accessibility and access and um doing or

 

not doing accessibility. Um, and this

 

can be quite useful again as part of

 

that rallying point and that that piece

 

to encourage and effect change within

 

your organization. So, it's worth

 

thinking about when you are thinking

 

about a policy. Again, you might not put

 

these in there, but it's certainly some

 

of the thinking that you're going to do

 

as you develop a policy. you'll start to

 

sort of surface some of these risks and

 

they may be relevant to you as an

 

organization and it's worth paying

 

attention to and trying to capture um

 

what that risk looks like, what the

 

potential impact is, how you might

 

mitigate it, all of those sorts of

 

things that you do with a good risk

 

register. So these are just three things

 

that I thought that you the risks that

 

you you might explore. Um so those legal

 

risks around about customer and employee

 

um reputational risks for you as an

 

organization depending on the market

 

that you're working within and the

 

potential for loss of sales again

 

depending on the market that you're

 

working in. Um so those are things that

 

you might think about um as you're

 

preparing the policy to help communicate

 

the need for a policy and value within a

 

policy.

 

So um who's your policy for? Um and

 

again this is this is an interesting one

 

to explore in the context of your

 

organization

 

um because it's going to vary. It's also

 

within the context of your the policy

 

itself. What's the scope of the policy

 

will kind of tell a bit of a story

 

around about uh who that policy is for.

 

But these are some of the audiences that

 

that might be relevant to you. Um first

 

foremost um particularly like public

 

sector bodies with the accessibility

 

statement. Um uh the public um or that

 

part of the public that happens to use

 

your website or app. Um they may be

 

concerned with your policy, but

 

realistically they're probably not going

 

to be. Um people with disabilities and

 

disabled people's organizations again

 

are a bit more of a specific audience um

 

that you might consider. um and

 

uh I'll talk about it later. You might

 

actually engage with them really in the

 

development of your policy as well,

 

which can be uh a useful and positive

 

exercise in the whole process. Um

 

regulation monitoring bodies, they may

 

be looking for I certainly know in the

 

UK there's uh um government digital

 

service are part of the UK government.

 

They will they monitor public sector

 

bodies looking at their accessibility

 

statements and trying to find out which

 

ones are there which ones are not um

 

which bits are missing etc. uh

 

management. Um so again as part of your

 

communication process as part of that uh

 

developing interests getting um

 

resources allocated to uh accessibility

 

activities management are going to be a

 

key part to that and um throughout the

 

management um from uh immediate

 

management right up the way to the top

 

of the organization if you can manage

 

that um certainly getting senior level

 

or director level buying for

 

accessibility activities and access

 

policy can be extremely beneficial for

 

moving things forward. Um, it's not

 

necessarily the kind of the catch

 

all and the kind of the

 

magic um wand that you might imagine,

 

but it certainly is useful if you've got

 

um director level support for the work

 

that you're doing. Um policy can be

 

useful for the whole organization as

 

well. again fitting in with the

 

organizational sort of um corporate

 

social responsibility and organizational

 

identity. People may well be interested

 

around about that. The other thing that

 

you might want to do with your um the

 

whole organization is engage people to

 

get involved and um participate in the

 

work that needs to happen. So the policy

 

can be used to set out how other

 

people might be involved in your

 

organization um and what sort of other

 

activities might be getting um being

 

developed. So again it's an element

 

of communication tool. Um finally um

 

policy is really for you and uh I'll

 

come to who should create the policy but

 

um if you're creating your policy it is

 

a vehicle to communicate and engage with

 

management and do all that um

 

onboarding that encouraging people to

 

participate in um accessibility

 

activities securing resources all the

 

stuff that needs to happen in order to

 

deliver accessibility. your policy is

 

there to kind of help support you in

 

that communication activity. And again,

 

particularly if it starts to become a

 

signed off formal looking piece. Um I

 

remember again when I was working in the

 

Scottish government, we did a lot of

 

work looking at um just straightforward

 

resources which I knew were already on

 

the web. So, um I don't know guidelines

 

on how to write um accessible word

 

documents and uh I knew they were on the

 

web, but actually what turned out to be

 

most effective was putting it on our

 

internet

 

in the internet style with the Scottish

 

government flag in the top left hand

 

corner and making it look like a

 

Scottish government policy. And then all

 

of a sudden I pointed people to it and

 

they went, "Oh, it's our policy. We have

 

to do it." And that made it easy. So

 

those sorts of engagement that policy

 

can be useful in in that way as well.

 

Um

 

okay one other group that policy might

 

be for might be related to and it

 

depends in your organization is this

 

diversity equality or equity depending

 

on um how you phrase it and inclusion.

 

So and this goes back to what I was

 

saying about what is accessibility and

 

what do I mean by accessibility. Um so

 

DEI um is concerned with that with a

 

much broader group of people um and much

 

sort of wider concerns around about um

 

uh

 

improving access to services uh

 

improving support, improving employment

 

opportunities, all those things

 

associated with diversity, inclusion,

 

equality.

 

um accessibility component can be seen

 

as a part of that a part of a broader

 

policy framework. Um what's what

 

whatever and however you look at it you

 

you I mean again my view uh my personal

 

view is I don't think you can do

 

diversity equality and inclusion if you

 

don't do accessibility

 

because effectively what you're doing

 

when you're creating inaccessible

 

products is you're creating absolute

 

barriers for a large a group of people

 

who should be able to participate

 

independently and they can't because

 

you've done these things that

 

just would preclude that.

 

So I see that without accessibility

 

which is a very known um quantity and

 

and something that we can't deliver on

 

DEI kind of fails. So that's why I think

 

if you've got DEI and you've got a DEI

 

unit or organized department or whatever

 

engagement with them is probably going

 

to be a key part of whatever you do with

 

the policy. Um I've put an example at

 

the bottom there which was better than

 

my uttering. um it's hard to have a

 

diverse workforce if some of them can't

 

enter the building or are unable to use

 

the digital work environment. Um and

 

that's where you kind of have your

 

accessibility and then you start

 

thinking about well yeah at the same

 

time but on top of that you're thinking

 

about diversity, equality and inclusion.

 

Okay.

 

How should you go about creating your

 

policy? Um, this is a bit of a whistle

 

stop because there's probably a load of

 

stuff that you can do within this and

 

some of these hide a lot of work. Um, I

 

think the first one's really to start

 

thinking about what's the scope of your

 

policy. Um, how wide are you throwing

 

the net? Um and that's both in terms of

 

the kind of what digital assets it's

 

going to cover but also in terms of um

 

what asp what part of the organization

 

it's going to cover. Ideally you'd want

 

to cover the whole organization but that

 

can be really difficult um because you

 

may not have any power to affect change

 

in some parts of your organization. So

 

you may have a policy which is local in

 

terms of how you're going to deal with

 

accessibility within your area. Um and

 

it may that be that other parts of the

 

organization pick that up, but at least

 

that's actually starting that thinking.

 

The other thing to think about within

 

the policy is um websites. What

 

websites is it covering? What apps is it

 

covering? Um

 

and uh are they the internal ones?

 

Are they the external ones? Are they

 

both? Um I think we are uh increasingly

 

um

 

required to work on uh web based and

 

digital products as part of our working

 

life. Um and we often forget um in our

 

drive for accessibility that actually it

 

applies to those internal things as

 

well. Um, and if we don't do a good job

 

there, then actually what we're doing is

 

we're making it harder for

 

disabled people to enter the

 

workforce and take up uh independent

 

employment opportunities. So that's an

 

important part to consider. Um, I think

 

the other one within all of those is

 

this the distinction between digital

 

and web. Um, so web is the way we think

 

about it, and I'll probably get um

 

picked up for doing this wrong. Web is

 

basically anything that's getting

 

delivered through a browser. It's

 

the web sort of um framework,

 

the HTML, CSS, JavaScript delivered

 

through a browser. You're using a web

 

app, whatever it happens to be. Digital

 

is a little bit more broad. So it's

 

things like um your conferencing

 

software which is much more of an

 

application on your desktop um your web

 

your chat software which again might be

 

an application um your email client

 

whatever it happens to be it's a digital

 

interface that still needs to be

 

accessible because it's part of that

 

whole environment that um particularly

 

around about employment um where someone

 

is working in. So that's again something

 

you might want to think about. Um and

 

that kind of changes things like what

 

standards or regulations apply and so

 

forth. The other one to think about and

 

this is one of the tough ones. Um and

 

I've kind of been involved with um

 

like public sector in Scotland and uh

 

the broader UK for a while and this is

 

one which always catches people and it's

 

actually purchased systems. So you can

 

have um fantastic uh internal

 

accessibility policies, fantastically

 

trained people, um you're developing um

 

fully accessible products, but as soon

 

as you go out and try and purchase

 

something, you are limited in what

 

options are available. Um if you

 

basically say we want only accessible

 

systems to be purchased. Now again I'll

 

come to this later because this is

 

something where it's kind of like how do

 

we affect change using a policy and how

 

does the policy apply but it's something

 

to also think about because in many

 

respects if you're running an

 

organization and it's an enterprise

 

level organization

 

you may not have the option to pick

 

and choose and wait for a fully

 

accessible product for whatever it is

 

you're trying to deliver. Um, so there's

 

an element of what do you do in those

 

circumstances and how do you how do you

 

um how do you get over that? That's kind

 

of one of the challenges around about

 

that.

 

So once you've kind of started having a

 

think about the scope and so forth um

 

and sorry these aren't numbered because

 

you don't have to do these in order but

 

uh these are sorts of things you have to

 

have a think about.

 

you might want to have a think about um

 

what standards or regulations apply to

 

you um or are useful to pick up um

 

obviously there's the web content

 

accessibility guidelines um and those

 

underpin a lot of the regulations uh

 

around the globe um so that's obviously

 

something you would be putting in there

 

certainly the

 

the

 

UK uh and EU public sector um

 

regulations. If you follow the trail

 

around about harmonized standards,

 

you'll end up in the web content

 

accessibility guidelines. There's a lot

 

more around about that. Um but that's

 

kind of the one of the things that most

 

people will test against and

 

reference and so forth. So have a think

 

about that. Again, if you're thinking

 

about digital, what happens there,

 

that's a little bit more tricky.

 

Um, but there are still standards around

 

about there that are worth um,

 

considering when you're pulling together

 

your policy.

 

Coming back to the accountability sort

 

of side of things and what your policy

 

is for, you kind of want to think about

 

some realistic milestones. Um, and plan

 

those in. And you may want to kind of

 

communicate what you're what you're

 

planning on doing. um it may be more

 

difficult or tricky to do that, but

 

certainly start thinking about what are

 

the milestones that you've got, what can

 

you realistically achieve in the time

 

scale that you've got with the resources

 

that you have. All of those sorts of

 

questions are important to start

 

thinking about at that point. You're not

 

necessarily going to have a lovely

 

perfect gant chart with absolute perfect

 

um swim lanes and lines of

 

development, activity, and improvement.

 

But you may have something that you

 

might want to kind of consider as key

 

milestones and um worth doing. This

 

is useful again for rallying people

 

around and um encouraging

 

activity and celebrating activity um

 

when you achieve one of those

 

milestones. So it's a really useful

 

thing to do and covers a lot of the

 

texts about why you create a policy.

 

I think the other one and related to

 

that is how are you going to monitor and

 

review your progress? Um if you don't do

 

that, how do you know anything you do is

 

making a difference? How do you know you

 

are improving? So you need to work out

 

within that how are you going to do the

 

monitoring? What are you going to

 

monitor? What are you going to track?

 

And what does good look like when

 

you're within there? And again, I'll

 

talk about that in a little bit. Um the

 

last one within a policy and this is I

 

mean it's relevant for internal and

 

external policies. Um it's include ways

 

for people to get in touch. Um because

 

if you're setting out your policy and

 

you're setting out this is what we're

 

going to do. Um this is what we've done

 

then it providing people with a way to

 

get in contact with you and go actually

 

it's not working or thank you very much

 

or have you considered this. That's

 

actually what you're looking to achieve

 

there. um you're looking to be able to

 

provide a way for people to get in touch

 

with you and communicate good and bad um

 

with what's going on with your policy

 

and that's an important part of it.

 

Um so what roughly should you

 

include in your policy?

 

Excuse me a second.

 

Now again, there's no hard and fast on

 

this one, but these are probably I was

 

looking at this um and I've got two

 

slides. I've got what should you include

 

and what could you include? These are

 

probably the ones that I would be

 

looking to definitely include if I can.

 

So, it's that assertion of broad goals.

 

What is what is it? What is it you're

 

trying to do? We are trying to make our

 

all our internal products more

 

accessible. We're trying to do this.

 

We're trying to meet WAG 2.2 or whatever

 

it is we're trying to do. That's your

 

broad assertion. and

 

that high level kind of sense of this is

 

the direction that we want to go in. You

 

want to probably include some of the

 

scope. Um I remember somebody from the

 

research saying it's useful to know what

 

the policy or statement relates to and

 

then if I have got a concern or a

 

complaint about something I know that

 

it's covered by this and if it's not

 

mentioned they are not covered by this

 

then that's fine. It's just useful to

 

know. So having that scope uh is very

 

clear um and useful.

 

I would argue that having an outline of

 

your proposed plan is a very useful

 

thing to put in your um policy. Again,

 

it kind of supports that sense of

 

accountability um to whoever it is your

 

audience is, whoever your customers are,

 

whatever. um it encourages

 

um support um and moving things forward

 

and um uh getting additional resources.

 

So having that outline of proposed plan

 

definitely a plus I feel. Um I think the

 

other one that related to that is this

 

updates and progress. Um so showing that

 

there is change happening. Um I don't

 

think anybody expects everything to

 

happen overnight. Um but showing that

 

you are making changes that you have

 

that this is where you started and these

 

are all the things that you've done and

 

this is all how it's all improved that

 

tells a good story and it also

 

encourages people that um that change is

 

happening and that and that particularly

 

um and this is an interesting one

 

particularly if it's happening as a

 

result of feedback from customer staff

 

whoever um then that can be a good

 

encouragement for those people as well

 

to So actually what we're doing matters,

 

what we say matters, they will pay

 

attention to it. Contact details, as I

 

said, allow people to get in touch,

 

allow people to um to praise you for

 

your um effect your effective

 

changes and the positive steps that

 

you're taking or to point out where

 

you've still got work to do. Um and

 

finally, I would say a date a date of

 

when this was last updated. And again,

 

this is back to the accountability. if

 

you don't put that in and people might

 

look at this and go well is is this like

 

10 years old and they they've just

 

ignored it since then. Um so it gives a

 

sense of progress and movement and

 

that can be quite useful.

 

So something other things that you could

 

put in your policy and some of these

 

depending on where you are depending on

 

the regulations may be required. Um so

 

I'm not saying these are not to be

 

included or anything like that. look at

 

your local legislation if there if there

 

is a part to that, but you might want to

 

be putting in relevant standards or

 

legislation. Um, again, coming back to

 

the research, there was a couple of

 

people who said, "I don't care what the

 

standard is. I just want it to work for

 

me." Um, that's fine, but some people do

 

care about the standards. So, we need to

 

put that in there. Need to make sure

 

it's not too technical, so it's not

 

overwhelming people unnecessarily, but

 

it may be a relevant part to include.

 

Um, another part and again I spoke

 

briefly about this just outlining

 

existing problem areas and how to avoid

 

them. Um, this can be something that's

 

really useful for uh, people who are

 

using the site and if they know that the

 

application form isn't this particular

 

application form isn't going to work for

 

them and that's the one that where they

 

need to phone in or whatever it happens

 

to be, then they know that up front.

 

They they're not going to get

 

frustrated. it's very clear. You've

 

provided an alternative pathway that

 

that can be useful. Ideally, have it so

 

that the form does work and they don't

 

have to do that that but um you'll get

 

to that one eventually.

 

Um details of your monitoring and

 

reviewing process that might be quite

 

useful to kind of outline what it is

 

you're tracking and how you're sort of

 

coming going about that improvement and

 

and what you're doing for that. And

 

similarly looking at the outcomes of

 

your monitoring review process. And this

 

is related to that sense of um progress

 

and the updates that you're doing. You

 

can you can show the number of

 

issues that you've identified, number of

 

failing pages, whatever it happens to be

 

and we'll come to that in a bit. So that

 

might be some of the things that you

 

could include in your policy. There may

 

be others that I've forgotten.

 

Um so coming back to what I said about

 

engagement with disabled people,

 

disabled people's organizations and

 

staff, uh you might want to test your

 

policy. Um just as you might run

 

usability testing on your website, you

 

might want to do some testing on your

 

policy. Um this can be useful for a

 

number of things uh a number of reasons.

 

Um first off is it is a really good

 

opportunity to engage with other parts

 

of your organization particularly if

 

there's an element within that policy

 

which is about the internal user

 

experience and the internal

 

accessibility. This gives you a chance

 

to kind of get out there, let people

 

know that it's going on, let people that

 

know that you're thinking about it. Um,

 

get people's input into the whole

 

process and that can be quite useful in

 

um, understanding whether the policy is

 

doing what it needs to do. Um, the usual

 

things for doing usability testing and

 

user research. Have you missed

 

something? is there's something inherent

 

within there that you've just thought

 

not thought about or um it's a blind

 

spot or it's not something you're aware

 

of in the organization and that can be

 

quite useful um uh in order to or if

 

you're testing your policy it can be

 

quite useful to try and find that

 

and finally I mean the big one is does

 

your policy make sense to the intended

 

audience um this was again something we

 

we kind of did a fair bit of work on it

 

was it was trying to understand whether

 

the way that we had to write the

 

content and the accessibility statements

 

made sense to disabled people who were

 

flagged as one of the key audiences for

 

this um document. Um there were bits

 

that did and there were bits that

 

didn't. So it was a good opportunity to

 

kind of find out more about that. But I

 

would suggest try and test your policy

 

as much as possible. Um which can always

 

be useful.

 

All right. Who creates and maintains it?

 

So, given that you're in the room here,

 

so to speak, virtually, uh it's probably

 

you. Um but there's going to be other

 

key contributors and other stakeholders

 

um that you need to uh either work

 

together with or seek input from. um

 

because without them and again good

 

reasons it starts communicating that

 

this is something that you're doing. It

 

engages them from an early start and

 

gets their input into what things like

 

the scope are going to be, what's

 

realistic in terms of milestones and an

 

awareness that this is this is something

 

that's coming down the line. So some um

 

groups that you might include are

 

whoever your technical team is or

 

technical department or technical part

 

of the organization. Um, I mean, they're

 

obviously a key one, particular if

 

you're developing your own products and

 

um, websites and apps and whatever since

 

they're the ones that are probably going

 

to be finding a lot of the issues.

 

They're certainly the ones that are

 

probably going to be fixing most of the

 

issues. Um, but engaging with technical

 

team is going to be a key part to this.

 

Um, because they're going to be doing a

 

a lot of the work. Um, your broader

 

product team. Now within product team,

 

I'd probably put people like business

 

analysts, uh user researchers, service

 

designers, um uh all the content

 

designers, all the sort of people that

 

are non-technical within a product team.

 

Um and product owners are a big ally on

 

these sorts of things as well. So it's

 

again it's convincing them or

 

communicating to them what the what the

 

goal is, what their role is potentially

 

within this, what you're looking to

 

achieve and trying to understand what

 

they're saying in terms of um achievable

 

milestones and all that sort of stuff.

 

So again they may be a key contributor

 

procurement somebody else that might get

 

involved um and again the reason they're

 

going to be involved is because you

 

might be buying lots of systems. Um I

 

know that we engage quite a lot with

 

procurement teams in various different

 

um organizations to try and work out how

 

do we how do we get or how do we

 

increase the chances of um purchasing an

 

accessible product when we go out to buy

 

digital products and services. Um and

 

it's a tricky one. Um, and that's

 

probably a a talk all in itself, but

 

procurement might be an important part

 

within your policy to work with to

 

understand that that key question of

 

what is it you can do to really increase

 

your chances of purchasing something

 

accessible or increasing your chances of

 

even if you can't purchase something

 

accessible, purchasing someone something

 

with an organization who is very keen on

 

developing their own product. And that's

 

a that's a good um sort of step back

 

from that. HR your so your human

 

resources whatever they happen to be

 

called nowadays um may also be an

 

important uh ally within this and an

 

important contributor particularly again

 

if you're looking at internal systems uh

 

internal processes around about um uh

 

things like uh employment on boarding um

 

and employment services HR may be a kind

 

of key part within there and as we

 

discussed earlier um diversity equality

 

or equity and inclusion um will if

 

you've got a team that's looking at

 

that. They may well be an a key um uh

 

contributor or you may be contributing

 

to uh kind of that broader um inclusion

 

framework whatever they're doing. One of

 

the interesting ones, and again I'll

 

come to this later, but whoever it is

 

you've got as key contributors, um

 

whether it's you or someone else, try

 

and make it part of their job

 

description and something that is part

 

of their annual review because then it's

 

kind of integrated and woven into what

 

they're doing and it really kind of

 

drives that forward. it kind of

 

reinforces it with their manager that

 

this is part of their job and that this

 

is something that's going to kind of

 

come up again and this is something

 

they're going to spend time on. So, it's

 

it's a kind of key part and really

 

important piece and worth um thinking

 

about how do you how do you recognize

 

that contribution to both um developing

 

the policy but also delivering on the

 

policy.

 

Okay, kind of flipping that over a wee

 

bit and it's who's responsible for

 

delivering on the policy. And again,

 

this is going to be massively dependent

 

on your scope, on your organization, on

 

what you've agreed to do. But similar

 

sorts of folks, technical, design,

 

product, process change depending on

 

what your organization's like and how

 

they approach process and how they

 

approach change management. Um, you

 

might find that you've got a change

 

team and they can be quite useful when

 

you're thinking about again particularly

 

internal policies uh and processes and

 

how to make them more accessible.

 

Communications and marketing again

 

depending on who's managing your

 

websites, who's procuring new websites

 

and putting them up and managing the

 

content, they can be a really important

 

um ally as well. And again, bang the

 

drum on procurement. um they may well be

 

an important um contributor to

 

delivering on the policy. Um obviously

 

if they are going to be a contributor to

 

delivering to it and responsible for

 

delivering to it, they probably need to

 

be involved in testing and developing it

 

your policy to a certain extent or at

 

least um have visibility of the

 

milestones and scope that you're looking

 

at. So there's a kind of flip around

 

about this. you're these are people that

 

you're probably looking at and then um

 

they're then going to go and do the

 

work. So, you need to get them on site.

 

Um the other thing within this is it

 

kind of starts to identify areas where

 

you might want to um target training and

 

support and particular resources or

 

tools that might help when they are

 

trying to deliver against the policy.

 

So, this is kind of a good way to start

 

thinking about that sort of stuff as

 

well.

 

Okay. Um, so measuring progress. So I

 

kind of mentioned that um, as part of

 

the policy, it's really important to

 

understand um, what progress you're

 

making and how you're going to

 

measure that. Um, there's a second part

 

to this which is impact which I'll come

 

to after this. Um, I think when you're

 

thinking about progress and metrics and

 

all that sort of stuff, it it's kind of

 

like you're going to have to work out

 

where you are now. Um, so regardless of

 

what metrics you choose, you you've got

 

to try and baseline them. If you if

 

you've not got a decent baseline, I

 

mean, I'm sure you all know this stuff,

 

no baseline, how do you know you've

 

you've done anything when you start

 

measuring it in a year's time? Um, so

 

that's h you want to be clear on what

 

your metrics are. Um, and this I'll I'll

 

talk through some possible metrics and

 

then I'll talk through some of the

 

challenges with them. Um, but it's

 

really trying to pick out your metrics

 

so that you are genuinely

 

measuring progress and to as much as

 

possible demonstrating impact. Um, and

 

those are kind of woven together and

 

very difficult to unpick and get

 

right. The other thing that you can do

 

when you've got some metrics is you can

 

communicate success or you can

 

communicate progress and you can do that

 

far and wide. You can do that throughout

 

your organization. Again, building out

 

awareness and knowledge of what you're

 

trying to do. You can do it in

 

externally through your accessibility

 

policy that's published on your website

 

and then people know that you're

 

actually serious about what you're

 

trying to do. So those are the sorts of

 

things you want to think about when

 

you're thinking about um uh blah blah

 

blah measuring progress.

 

Uh Sharron, you have preempted me. Some

 

possible metrics. Um and yes, impact is

 

hard. I'll come easy.

 

Sharron Rush: Great. Thank you.

 

Kevin White: Pleasure. So I'm going to go through

 

these but bear in mind I'm going to also

 

go through a slide which talks about the

 

problems with um metrics and that's

 

something you kind of need to think

 

about quite a lot. And then yes it's how

 

do you connect it with impact and again

 

that's probably what you're going to

 

spend some time thinking about when

 

you're looking at this. So these are

 

just some possible ones. I'm sure you'll

 

think of others. I'm sure other people

 

have thought of others and that's

 

fine. Um

 

you could for a specified set of digital

 

products go right the number of WIKAG

 

success criteria passes or fails

 

relatively straightforward may not cover

 

everything whatever but it gives you

 

something um and it's a you within that

 

you might want to kind of because you've

 

got a specified set of digital products

 

you've got a consistency around about

 

your metrics. So year on year or quarter

 

on quarter whatever you're measuring

 

you've got a sense of well actually we

 

are actually showing progress and we are

 

measuring relatively the same thing each

 

time. Don't know um you could be looking

 

at within again a set um digital product

 

or website the number of pages with

 

conformance failures. So, you take a

 

step back from the WIKAG success

 

criteria and you just go actually we've

 

got 400 pages, 5,000 pages, 20,000

 

pages, whatever it happens to be that

 

have conformance failures. Um, and then

 

a year later you've got 200, whatever it

 

happens to be. So, again, that might be

 

something that worked. Um, total time

 

required to fix known issues. This one

 

is kind of that pulls it back to the

 

technical um and potentially the content

 

designers and writers. Um and that can

 

be quite an interesting one because that

 

starts to capture some of the complexity

 

of difficult um uh problems. Um, so you

 

might have 20,000 issues on your site,

 

but in actual fact, um, sorry, 19,998

 

of them are an absolute breeze to fix

 

and two of them are a little bit harder.

 

Or you might have 10 issues and they are

 

absolutely

 

fundamentally nightmarish to fix and

 

will take months and months and months.

 

So if you're looking at the total time

 

to fix known issues and it's obviously

 

estimated total time then that might be

 

a good way to do it. Um the other one

 

and so those sort of previous um issues

 

certainly the first two talk about are

 

related to the

 

standards. Um you might take a step

 

further and look at some qualitative

 

experiential metrics. Um now the

 

challenge that you got with this is some

 

it's trying to baseline on a way in a

 

way that you can do it each year or each

 

quarter or each cycle where you're doing

 

um your monitoring. So you would then

 

maybe have to specify the task that

 

you're doing. Specify the number of

 

people that you're working with.

 

Potentially even specify the

 

disabilities. And again there's a

 

problem with that which I'll come to in

 

a second.

 

Um some other possible metrics and these

 

starting to come become more and more

 

problematic as we go through them. Um

 

number of employees that you have with

 

disabilities or with disclosed

 

disabilities. That might be something

 

particularly that HR want to measure to

 

show that they are becoming a more

 

inclusive organization. Um and it may be

 

related to the accessibility of your um

 

workplace or your employment process. So

 

that might be relevant. um number of

 

complaints related to accessibility.

 

Again, that's an interesting one which

 

you might think would be great, but it

 

has a problem with it. Um and then

 

probably more relevant in the US um

 

although there are um cases in the UK

 

and Europe as well. How much are you

 

paying in legal fees if you've got an

 

inaccessible set of products? That might

 

be something where you go, well actually

 

we want to bring that one down. um

 

obvious well I don't want to get into

 

talking about um the

 

challenge of um uh lawsuits associated

 

with um accessibility. So I'll just

 

leave that one there.

 

Okay. So I've said a few times that

 

there are problems with metrics. Um this

 

is the kind of slide where I start

 

to kind of unpick everything all that.

 

Um, one of the top problems with metrics

 

is it might suggest that there isn't a

 

problem and that's a tricky one. So you

 

might see that um there aren't well

 

actually a

 

bad one which I'll come to but it can

 

kind of work against you is you might

 

find we have no um disabled employees um

 

and management go well let him go no

 

problem. I mean, obviously that's a bad

 

thing. Um, but when you're choosing your

 

metrics, think about, well, what's

 

really going to change here and how is

 

it going to change and what are we going

 

to show? So, that can be a tricky

 

challenge because there are things that

 

you definitely want to measure, but if

 

it if it doesn't show a problem, what

 

does that then do for your policy? What

 

does it mean for the work that you're

 

doing?

 

Thinking about that employee situation,

 

that's a tricky one as well. Um, not

 

everyone who's an employee uh will

 

disclose a disability. Um, and also

 

there are plenty of there are plenty of

 

hidden disabilities. They may not want

 

to talk about the disability. So, it may

 

not be part of their employment. So,

 

that makes it very hard to use that as a

 

metric for um accessibility

 

um even if you can say that it is a

 

metric for accessibility. So that's kind

 

of one thing to think around about that.

 

In terms of um providing feedback and

 

capturing complaints associated with

 

accessibility, um this is one that I've

 

um

 

uh experienced and spoken with a number

 

of people about. Um disabled people can

 

be disinclined to provide feedback. And

 

the one of the reasons I heard which um

 

just it made me feel sad quite

 

frankly was it doesn't matter if I

 

provide feedback nothing's going to

 

change and that's a difficult psychology

 

to get over um because you can't that

 

change that person's experience and what

 

they went through and the fact that

 

they realized they have complained and

 

and nothing happens and that's one of

 

the problems and that's actually one of

 

the reasons why you want to show what is

 

changing. And ideally, if it is changing

 

as a result of feedback, it's showing

 

that it changed as a result of feedback.

 

Our users said this, our customers said

 

this, our employees said this, and we

 

did this and we made a change and it was

 

a good thing. So, please tell us more

 

about the things that need to change.

 

That's an interesting one cuz if it does

 

if you do start to do that and you are

 

measuring um that as a metric, you might

 

find that as you show that you are

 

responding to feedback um it can

 

increase and you get more feedback. And

 

as Jen puts in the chat there, yeah,

 

feedback can be weaponized. It's a

 

tricky one. Um but again, it's think

 

through the issues rather than just kind

 

of go. It's worth kind of thinking

 

about all these ones.

 

Can you explain a little bit about

 

feedback becomes weaponized? I don't

 

quite get that.

 

Um, so it can be used um and maybe this

 

is something Jen can kind of comment on

 

as well, but it can be used to basically

 

um try to affect change or attack

 

certain things that are just not liked.

 

So it's maybe not necessarily just

 

about accessibility. Sorry, Jen. I'm

 

probably not explaining this very well

 

and you're probably going to be way

 

better than me if you're willing to

 

explain.

 

Jen: Sure. I was starting to type in the

 

chat. Um, what I have found is a person

 

with disabilities when I give feedback

 

that feedback then becomes

 

um they maybe it's how I phrase it. I'm

 

still working on it and I couch it in a

 

million different ways. But sometimes

 

that feedback is seen as uh registered

 

as complaints or allegations and it's

 

not that. It's saying something for

 

example

 

um I have approved accommodations.

 

They aren't being met on this project. I

 

need help. Um the person that I'm

 

supposed to go to is busy and doesn't

 

help for a couple of weeks. a six and

 

then that couple of weeks turns into six

 

weeks and by that time my medical

 

condition is so triggered I'm not

 

capable of advocating for myself and now

 

I have um memorandum of warning in my

 

personnel file for

 

delivering uh false uh delivering

 

reports with bad not good faith and it's

 

like it was totally good faith like it

 

was saying um we need to have a process

 

whereby by an employee who has

 

accommodations has some sort of a

 

resolution in a prompt fashion so that

 

their health doesn't suffer. Um, an

 

employee should not with a disability

 

should not have to limp along and

 

potentially risk an ER visit or worse

 

because the accommodation is not being

 

met. Does that make sense?

 

Kevin White: That makes sense to me. Sharron, does

 

that make sense to you?

 

Jen: Are you still there?

 

Sharron Rush: Sorry, I I was talking away. Yes, that

 

was actually very helpful. Thank you. I

 

I didn't understand which direction the

 

weapon was pointed until you explained

 

that to me. So, thanks.

 

Lots of different

 

welcome.

 

Kevin White: Thank you, Thanks, Sharron.

 

Um, so couple of other um issues. A lot

 

of the data that you might capture um

 

associated with these metrics may have

 

data protection or privacy issues. So

 

again you may need to think through

 

those. Um and the last one related to

 

that qualitative experiential metrics.

 

Um if you are focusing on specified

 

disabilities because you kind of need to

 

contain the set in order to get

 

repeatability

 

you may be leaving out other people and

 

other uh disabilities. And that then

 

means well one you're not representing

 

those disabilities but you may also be

 

missing issues within what you're

 

measuring. So measurement and metrics

 

are really important but they're really

 

challenging and it's really difficult to

 

ensure that you've kind of got the right

 

ones and that you're

 

measuring something that makes sense

 

related to that. And one of the things

 

that you want to do with um your metrics

 

is demonstrate that whatever it is

 

you're doing matters. Um and how do you

 

know that that it matters? And as I joke

 

there, this is not an existential

 

question. Um the challenge is to join

 

the dots between any intervention or

 

remediation and an outcome a uh ideally

 

a positive outcome, a change um related

 

to your policy. And that can be really

 

really tricky um for some issues like

 

code. For example, code changes um are

 

relatively straightforward. You make a

 

change in code because of a compliance

 

failure, that compliance failure goes

 

away. That's a relatively

 

straightforward line to draw. Um but if

 

you're starting to look at the

 

qualitative experience,

 

um then it's harder. How do you

 

know that that qualitative experience

 

has been fixed specifically by a change

 

in the code? Um, if you're looking at

 

something like disabled employees, and

 

again, this is something I've seen with

 

HR departments. Um, how do you know any

 

of the changes that you're making is

 

having an increase? It's is

 

it's what is causing a change in the

 

number of disabled employees?

 

Now, you could kind of say, well,

 

actually, our employment process is

 

inaccessible. it has a um I don't know a

 

you have to take a photo of yourself and

 

submit it through an inaccessible form

 

um which makes it impossible for say a

 

Jaws user to kind of go through that

 

process um if you fix that uh and you

 

don't see an increase in disabled

 

employees was that fix worth it did it

 

have an impact that's kind of the

 

challenge if you don't fix it and you

 

see an increase in disabled employees.

 

What did that mean? So that's where

 

the line becomes much harder to um

 

to determine but it's it is a really

 

important one. Um and the importance is

 

around about that organizational buying.

 

If you can demonstrate the impact of the

 

work that you are doing, it becomes um

 

increasingly easier to ensure that the

 

organization gets behind what you are

 

doing. Um, and that's the big challenge

 

with all of these sorts of things. And

 

going back to briefly that that sense,

 

one of the problems with the metrics

 

that they might suggest there isn't a

 

problem. It's the same with impact. It

 

might not be clear what the impact of

 

the any intervention or work or revenue

 

spend or whatever it is was. And

 

actually, that's one of the things it's

 

worth spending a fair amount of time

 

thinking about.

 

Okay. So the last bit I want to talk

 

about um is uh you've got a policy. So

 

what? Um the best policy in the world is

 

worth nothing if you don't actually walk

 

the talk. Um and that's very much around

 

about what the policy is saying you're

 

doing, what your kind of your g

 

goals and aims and the intent that you

 

have. How are you delivering on that? Um

 

the example that Sharron gave um when we

 

were chatting before was very much uh

 

associated with this. This is it's like

 

you have an organizational policy and

 

yet you deliver webinars with no

 

captions or you send out um untagged

 

PDFs that are um impossible to process.

 

How do you kind of stand up with those

 

and ensure that those aren't

 

kind of the common approach to it

 

when you have got an accessibility

 

policy that says your intent is to

 

ensure that disabled people are not

 

disadvantaged or excluded.

 

That's what you're going to try and do.

 

So, h I I over burdened myself with

 

alliteration and came up with

 

communication carrots and consequences.

 

Um

 

and um I'm just going to talk through

 

those briefly. Um sorry, something's

 

just popped up in my screen. Um so

 

communication. Um I think this is and

 

I've touched on this in a few a few

 

points. Have a plan for telling people

 

about your policy. Um because the more

 

they know about it um and the more you

 

communicate about it, the more they

 

might think, well, hang on a second.

 

There's something I can do about this.

 

and that's particularly when you

 

outline why it matters and that can be a

 

kind of strong um sort of

 

a strong way of encouraging people to

 

get involved. The other thing you can

 

kind of do is give examples of how

 

people can help deliver against that

 

policy within their area. Um, one of the

 

things I tried to do in the Scottish

 

government was, um, once I recognized

 

that a lot of the work that we did was

 

about producing documents, I worked hard

 

to teach people how to use their

 

document editor. Uh, and that was kind

 

of the big driver for that. And we set

 

up kind of local hubs to try and get

 

people to um to do that and to

 

encourage um others to learn about it

 

and so forth. So um that was it was like

 

what was the example that kind of was

 

driving the policy that we were policy

 

intent that we had

 

carrots how do you kind of encourage

 

people to keep doing this to do more

 

to participate to improve and I mean

 

part of this is about I think um in uh

 

celebrating

 

people's roles and what they do and

 

the change that they've brought.

 

Uh and again there are different ways to

 

do that. Champions programs there's a

 

lot of talk about those. I think it's

 

there they can be extremely valuable. Um

 

as long as you know that the champion

 

program is actually kind of bringing

 

about change what what's it actually

 

doing? Um goes back to your metrics and

 

your impact and so forth. But it can be

 

quite useful particularly if uh you've

 

got a big organization and a small

 

accessibility team. Um development

 

opportunities can be quite useful. So,

 

have you got pathways for people who

 

become more and more interested in

 

accessibility that that um give them

 

actual physical rewards and value for

 

for actually developing their skills and

 

improving? Is that something that your

 

organization can do? Is it big enough it

 

can do? Um recognition and annual

 

reviews. So, again going back to put

 

this in people's job descriptions um and

 

recognize this as wins in annual

 

reviews if you are delivering against

 

the accessibility policy. that's can

 

be really good. Um, more broadly, h

 

celebrating wins. I think this is a big

 

one. If you've if you have achieved

 

something amazing, if you have done

 

something that's really brought

 

about change or if you've got some

 

really good feedback, celebrate it. Make

 

it make it a big thing. Let people know

 

about it. Um, and I think related to

 

that is talking about improvements and

 

progress. And again kind of mentioned in

 

the policy, one of the things that I

 

think is important is to ensure that you

 

say, well, we had this feedback or we

 

found this thing and we made this with

 

this improvement and being open

 

about the progress that you're making as

 

much as you can and I appreciate the

 

challenge within that for certain types

 

of organizations.

 

The consequences, this is the hardest

 

one, I think. Um, and it's really

 

difficult. I mean and you kind of think

 

and I mean I remember years and years

 

ago when I wasn't in the public sector I

 

hadn't been in the public sector I

 

hadn't worked with procurement I hadn't

 

done kind of mass big projects and all

 

of those sorts of things and it's very

 

easy to go well don't buy inaccessible

 

products if you buy an in if you buy

 

a product that someone says it's

 

accessible and it's not don't pay them

 

all these possibly

 

idealistic or naive depending on how

 

generous you're views. Um, and it's very

 

difficult to do that. It's very

 

difficult to hold um suppliers to

 

account. It's very difficult to hold

 

teams to account who are not delivering

 

on these things because you we want to

 

kind of try we're trying to get um

 

develop people to encourage

 

improvement to get people to kind of

 

self start on a lot of this sort of

 

stuff. So, it's very hard to kind of

 

outline what the consequences are. I'm

 

much more of a carrot person than a

 

consequences person. Um, one that you

 

can potentially do but it is difficult

 

is that if you are procuring um, and

 

procurement is a kind of a common theme

 

in the challenging space. Um, if you're

 

procuring then try and select more

 

accessible products and more than just

 

select more accessible products,

 

communicate that you are doing that. Um,

 

because that's kind of then sending a

 

message. Um, it's using that buying

 

power to change the market. Um, and that

 

can that can be effective. Um, I mean,

 

I've certainly seen over the last few

 

years working in public sector a bit of

 

a change in how suppliers talk about

 

accessibility because there's been much

 

more noise about it in the UK public

 

sector. Can't speak to other public

 

sectors, but certainly I've seen

 

that in the UK public sector. still not

 

perfect, but there is more there that's

 

about that. Um, the last one's really

 

kind of that if you if you can, if

 

you've got the the internal

 

knowledge, you've got the

 

capacity, uh, you got the way to do

 

this, it's calling out supplier

 

compliance failures. And I think

 

importantly working with them to improve

 

it. One of the things that I was very

 

keen on was working with suppliers to

 

help them improve their products so that

 

we could have an accessible product. The

 

the sale to them that I always tried to

 

promote was actually what you're doing

 

is you're making your product better if

 

you can do these things. Um you're doing

 

it for us, but hopefully other customers

 

will benefit from this. You will benefit

 

hopefully by having more sales. Um it

 

was it was trying to work with them and

 

a good supplier was one that I could

 

work with in my view um to improve

 

accessibility.

 

Um cool. So last thing I think that I'm

 

just going to say is h because I didn't

 

want to end on the consequences cuz

 

that's that always that seems quite

 

quite a downer. Um stay positive about

 

this. It's we know that

 

accessibility is never really done. Um I

 

think uh if we can make tomorrow

 

slightly better than today, then we're

 

going in the right direction. And um Mel

 

Evans and that that that that sense of

 

progress over perfection. I know that

 

there are people that think no, we

 

we just should be there. But I think

 

realistically we still need to kind

 

of continue to progress. We need to

 

kind of keep looking at it and going

 

actually we can get a wee bit better.

 

We're not going to get perfect, but we

 

can get a wee bit better. That's a big

 

plus from my perspective.

 

Um, so just to wrap up uh and um try and

 

sort of pull out some bullet points

 

about it, I think do the ground work.

 

Find out who the stakeholders are. Find

 

out what your metrics are going to be.

 

Think about what the scope is. All of

 

that sort of stuff. Um, create a policy

 

that's suited to your organization and

 

suited to that scope. There's no point

 

in kind of just picking up an

 

off the shelf thing. You can get some of

 

that. There are some things that you can

 

do, but think about your organization

 

and what you're trying to achieve and

 

what you think is realistic and have a

 

policy that's suited to that. Um, use

 

that policy, promote it internally,

 

promote the intent, engage with the

 

audiences, outline what is what you're

 

trying to do and try and get people

 

to kind of come in behind you and

 

help move it forward. Uh, measure what

 

you can so that you can highlight the

 

impact. Um and those spoke about them

 

quite a bit. Um measurement theory and

 

all well actually measurement theory is

 

a bit more math. Um measures and setting

 

up measures and metrics is a really

 

challenging space. There's people with

 

more knowledge about that. They can talk

 

about that than me. But it is one of the

 

difficult ones because ultimately it's

 

about demonstrating that the investment

 

and the resources and the time and all

 

of that is actually having an impact and

 

it is a positive impact. And that's an

 

important one to try and think through.

 

Celebrate the success massively because

 

if you celebrate the success, you're

 

promoting that your intent and your

 

engagement and that the work that you're

 

doing ma is making a difference because

 

there is there are these successes that

 

are really important and that

 

is extremely valuable. Uh slight

 

tangential story which I it was one of

 

my favorite stories. There was a big

 

policy work that or a big product that

 

we worked on um for

 

oh I can't remember the agency in

 

Scotland but they did

 

grants for um uh young adults disabled

 

young adults to uh help them live

 

independently. And um I remember there

 

was one that came through which was uh a

 

young lad who had gone through the whole

 

application process because he wanted a

 

dog. And we were all looking at and

 

going, "Were we going to buy him a dog?"

 

And he had set out a case for why that

 

dog was important to him. And what was

 

fantastic was we had designed this whole

 

service so that he was able to do it

 

independently. he was able to do it

 

himself and get to the point where he

 

could actually express his desire, his

 

need, his what he was looking for and

 

how it would help him. And at the end of

 

it, we gave him a grant and he went off

 

and bought a dog or the agency gave

 

him a grant and he went off and bought a

 

dog and I was absolutely over the moon

 

about this and told loads of people

 

about it and it I was very happy because

 

the work that we did to make that

 

process work for him made his life

 

better. by buying him a dog, which is

 

great. And there was a puppy involved.

 

What's not to love? And finally,

 

keep at it. This is hard work. It's

 

we all kind of um are faced with the

 

the cliff and the uphill struggle

 

and so forth, but um that progress over

 

perfection and making tomorrow slightly

 

better than today, it's all worth it and

 

worth keeping going.

 

Um there's a couple of resources on the

 

uh way website. Um there's one which is

 

developing organizational policies and

 

web accessibility. It kind of goes

 

through bits and bobs of what we've

 

done. There's a bit more in this talk.

 

Uh there's another section which is

 

planning and managing accessibility and

 

there's a big piece on plan which again

 

talks about some of these things.

 

There's a lot more to that planning and

 

managing. So um feel free to have a look

 

at those that can be quite useful. You

 

might be able to pick up some things

 

there that are useful. Um and that is

 

me. Does anybody have any questions?

 

I'm going to stop sharing my screen

 

because I think I've looked at that

 

enough. If I can find the button.

 

Anna Skelley: Um, I know we said we were going to use

 

the uh Q&A function, but if it's easier

 

for y'all and y'all like to ask

 

questions out loud, you can use the

 

raise your hand function and we'll call

 

on you.

 

Whatever works best.

 

Sharron Rush: I put it in the chat, but I just wanted

 

to say that planning and managing guide

 

that you referenced, Kevin,

 

I send that to people all the time who

 

are starting to build programs and, you

 

know, it's high level and it's not

 

specific. You have to customize it to

 

whatever your situation is, but it is

 

excellent in terms of covering the

 

bases,

 

giving you the general ideas of what are

 

the components that you need to think

 

about and plan for. I just think that is

 

an excellent resource. So, I wanted to

 

just add that.

 

Kevin White: Cool. Thank you.

 

Um, David,

 

David: uh, I've got a long question because I

 

noted there might have been some time

 

for a long question.

 

So, sorry, sorry in advance. Um, yeah,

 

so I'm in an organization uh, and my

 

team, we made an accessibility strategy.

 

I think we didn't call it a policy

 

because we're in government and policy

 

is like a very specific thing in

 

government.

 

Kevin White: Oh, it is.

 

David: Um,

 

and it was like don't touch it with a 10

 

foot pole sort of thing. we made a

 

strategy uh and it's been pretty darn

 

successful. So I had hopes of like using

 

this to springboard to a strategy for

 

sort of the broader organization on

 

accessibility. Uh but yeah, looking for

 

advice

 

um for like that you talked a bit about

 

at the beginning of like the scope piece

 

of like what will this policy be scoped

 

for? Who's it for? any advice on like

 

increasing that scope once there's like

 

success in a smaller space?

 

Kevin White: Yeah, good question and good approach

 

actually. I think um and it highlights

 

one of the values of kind of taking that

 

contained scope and I think what you can

 

do with that or certainly what I would

 

try and think about doing in that case

 

is actually using what you've done as a

 

case study to then communicate more

 

broadly. Right, this is what we done.

 

this is what this this is what was

 

achieved um by by the what we did and

 

this is what we think could happen if we

 

kind of take that much more further and

 

that's

 

it I think particularly in the public

 

sector who are very risk averse and

 

very resource um sort of uh limited

 

if you can show well actually we did

 

this and there wasn't much in the way of

 

risk associated with it and there was no

 

kind of massive backlash and it

 

didn't cost us an arm and a leg, then

 

you can you can kind of sell that a

 

little bit more. Um, and I think that's

 

having it as a case study almost is I

 

think one of the big advantages that

 

you've got of where you are and what

 

you've done. Um, and I mean public

 

sector in the UK, you've always got you

 

can fall back on the regulation and just

 

go well and as a almost a starter for

 

ten and saying we need to do this and

 

here's how and that that can be a that

 

can be a big kind of driver as well. I

 

mean certainly

 

um public sector certainly senior public

 

um sector employees and civil servants

 

are all too often faced with a situation

 

where they are given a problem and no

 

solution. What you're doing is you're

 

giving them a problem with a solution.

 

And that's a big win.

 

Anna Skelley: Do we have any more questions?

 

Okay. Um, want to mention we had a

 

little in the chat there. Oh, Kevin, you

 

saw it. The Jenny. um saying thank you

 

for all the information that's going to

 

help her. So, I'm really glad that

 

somebody so much. Um

 

um if we don't have any more questions,

 

um we do ask that you guys stick around

 

for just a minute here. Um on the left

 

here, we have a link to our session

 

survey. Please, if you don't mind,

 

please either scan the QR code or you

 

can go to bit.ly/july20bada.

 

um and fill out our survey. It should

 

only take a few minutes. Um and if you'd

 

like to contribute to our programs, uh

 

you can also scan that QR code on the

 

right there. Um or visit

 

Knowbility.org/donate.

 

Um I'd also like to mention that uh

 

registration for our accessibility

 

internet rally is currently open and um

 

we're looking for teams, individual

 

developers, uh nonprofit organizations

 

that would like their website rebuilt.

 

Um, and we're looking for sponsors. So,

 

we have lots of different opportunities

 

available. So, if you'd like to learn

 

more about air, please visit

 

knowbility.org/air.

 

Sharron Rush: And I'd just add to the that that's

 

really good information about air, but

 

if any of you have not participated or

 

aren't familiar with it, it's um we're

 

25 years old this year. It's the 25th

 

year that we've held this accessible web

 

design contest and really what it is is

 

a um an active learning. So teams of web

 

developers or digital professionals get

 

together and they take some trainings

 

from uh accessibility experts. So the

 

training itself is really valuable. But

 

then for the next eight weeks after the

 

training and the matchup, they work on a

 

very simple website for a nonprofit

 

organization and then we have a judging

 

and we give prizes and uh it's really a

 

fun way to engage with accessibility. So

 

if you have teams of developers or

 

designers at your in your organization

 

who need to learn about accessibility

 

and you know a lot of times it can feel

 

like oh I have to do this I'm I have to

 

take this training because it's a

 

requirement it's a mandate but this puts

 

accessibility in the in the context of

 

fun friendly competitive

 

um creative engagement you help another

 

nonprofit organization that's

 

struggling to be on the web. So, it's a

 

lot of fun and there's a lot of

 

information on our website. If you if

 

you just go to Knowbility.org, the first

 

big banner you see is it's airtime and

 

we're going to celebrate 25 years this

 

year. So, we're pretty excited. Hope

 

hope that some of you might find it

 

useful to participate or have some teams

 

participate.

 

Okay, I'll hush now.

 

Anna Skelley: No, thank you so much, Sharron. That was

 

really good. Um, yeah, it is our 25th

 

year and we're having a big birthday

 

celebration. So, you want to be a part

 

of it this year.

 

Okay. Um, I think that concludes our

 

July edition of Be a Digital Ally. Thank

 

you so much again to Kevin for coming in

 

and talking. That was really awesome.

 

And I think there's a lot of really

 

useful information, a lot of great

 

insider info. So, um, just so you guys

 

know, this recording will be uploaded to

 

our YouTube channel, um, once we have

 

captioning fixed and ready, so you have

 

that to look forward to if you'd like to

 

reference it. And the slide deck has

 

been dropped in the chat a couple times.

 

So, if you need that, feel free to save.

 

Uh, thank you again everybody to coming

 

and thank you again to Kevin. Have a

 

good afternoon.

 

Sharron Rush: Thanks, Kevin. You are awesome.

 

Kevin White: Thank you, Sharron. Take care.

 

Thank you.