{"id":887,"date":"2020-05-18T21:57:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T21:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/?p=887"},"modified":"2020-05-19T18:08:47","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T18:08:47","slug":"going-for-gold-how-do-you-achieve-digital-accessibility-excellence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/2020\/05\/18\/going-for-gold-how-do-you-achieve-digital-accessibility-excellence\/","title":{"rendered":"Going for Gold – how do you achieve digital accessibility excellence?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In celebration of this year\u2019s Global Accessibility Awareness Day (#GAAD), let\u2019s take a look at some of the challenges in defining excellence in digital accessibility on an organisational level.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Defining accessibility<\/h3>\n

The word \u2018accessibility\u2019 gets used a lot. Since 23 September 2019 the law around website accessibility has changed for public sector organisations. <\/span><\/p>\n

As a university, we\u2019re lucky to have some very dedicated expert colleagues in different parts of the organisation. They range from world-leading researchers to service providers, and dedicated digital and user experience practitioners. We\u2019re also lucky to have access to students and other users, including disabled students and other advocates. They all work very hard to push the accessibility and inclusivity as high as possible on the University\u2019s agenda. I\u2019m always grateful to be working at a place that values and tries to do the right thing by the user.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over a number of years, I have had lots of conversations about accessibility. One observation that I\u2019ve had is that people often have very different lenses on the topic and what \u2018good\u2019 means. That in itself can occasionally make having effective conversations and agreeing on shared definitions difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n

The digital services definition<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve been looking at a lot of different definitions, tested accessibility design patterns and guidance<\/a>. Often, the word \u2018accessibility\u2019 gets used to describe how many people can use something<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Government Digital Services Guidance<\/a> defines \u2018accessibility\u2019 as \u201cmore than putting things online. It means making your content and design clear and simple enough so that most people can use it without needing to adapt it, while supporting those who do need to adapt things\u201d.<\/p>\n

I like Lou Downe\u2019s<\/a> Good Services design principles, especially number #11: a good service is usable by everyone, equally<\/em>.<\/strong> \u201cThe service must be used by everyone who needs to use it, regardless of their circumstances or abilities. No one should be able to use the service less than anyone else\u201d (Good Services<\/a>, Lou Downe). Lou makes a case for designing for inclusion<\/strong>, and this goes beyond accessibility.<\/p>\n

\"AInclusion is a necessity, not an enhancement poster. Lou Downe, Good Services<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her point also helps set the scene a little for why it has been tricky for us as a programme, and for many other organisations, to be clear on what actually \u2018gold\u2019 (beyond the required minimum) accessibility standards are for our University. <\/span><\/p>\n

So why is it so challenging? Here\u2019s my non-exhaustive list:
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Challenge 1: there\u2019s no A to Z guide for applying accessibility<\/h3>\n

The OneWeb programme<\/a> was set up specifically to re-engineer digital services and products for our many end-users. Essentially the brief is <\/span>to design every service around user needs.<\/b> Accessibility can obviously affect the needs of every group we design for so \u2018baking in accessibility\u2019 has always been one of the guiding principles of the programme.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If the goal is to meet users’ needs, then surely we must try to make our services as inclusive as possible. We\u2019re doing this by ensuring there are no\u00a0 barriers that make it impossible or difficult for anyone to use them. We want our services to be easy to use by everyone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t always simple though.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stakeholders and end-users often have conflicting requirements and there will be situations that are overlooked due to us being unaware of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it is important to understand why someone might be more likely to be excluded from our service and tackle the underlying causes for it. For example, providing an alternative way of contacting us, or ensuring we represent diversity in our imagery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In reality though when deadlines are short, budget is limited, there are legacy systems at play, and other challenges to work with – compromises do happen. This is not something that I think we should accept lightly, but I\u2019m being honest about it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Also as we\u2019ve already established, inclusivity goes way beyond digital services. We need to consider other touch-points in the journey including when individuals may have a temporary or a permanent access issue. It goes all the way to physical access in buildings to HR policies.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"ExamplesMicrosoft Design Toolkit: Examples of permanent, temporary or situational impairment via @realHayman<\/a> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is one of many reasons why diversity in teams and organisations is important. It\u2019s why we must conduct regular user research with our audiences and test with as many users as possible to make sure our services truly work for everyone. It does beg the question – how much can you polish stuff that hasn\u2019t been built with users in mind, let alone accessibility and inclusivity in mind?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This cannot be an after-thought. It has to be \u2018baked-in\u2019 right from the start to make sure our services are:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n