Robert ChristophersonHead of Digital InclusionAbilityNet

Accessibility Management in a Nutshell

Who’s Affected?

Your stakeholders:

18% of UK population has a disability – and growing

Many millions more have dyslexia or literacy difficulties

Aging population

More and more people using online services - on more and more platforms

The Sticks

It’s the law – Equality Act, Disability Equality Duty, employment law

Potential cost of litigation

Lose employees, customers and clients

Cost of medical retirement, recruitment and retraining

Bad publicity/brand damage

Retrofitting accessibility more costly and more difficult

Public Sector – Leading the Way?

“Fairness is not an additional cost on the public sector. Fairness is why we have a public sector”

Patrick Diamond, Group Director StrategyEquality and Human Rights Commission

The Carrots

Reach a wider audience – up to 20%

Makes your site more useable for everyone – by 35%

More mobile-friendly

Reduces page weight, bandwidth and maintenance

Improves search engine rankings

Easier to refresh

Your disabled employees (of today and tomorrow)

Happy Birthday BS 8878

BS8878 ‘Web Accessibility Code of Practice’

Published 7 Dec 2010

Guidance on designing or commissioning ‘web products’

Focus on process rather than technical or design issues

Fewer horror stories BUT still all too common

The Challenge

The challenge is to:

Gain and retain accessibility expertise across all your IT and web teams

Stay abreast of developments in technical standards, regulations and legislation

HTML5, WCAG, ARIA, MWBP, TG102

Ensure expertise is based on real user experience

Access disabled users for ‘real-life’ compliance

Number 10 Website – Meeting the Challenge?

Hi-Impact Relationships

iCOMPLY – A Managed Approach

AbilityNet’s iCOMPLY:

Access professional support from a single source

Embedded expertise – a consultant regularly on-site

Fast turnaround on queries

Cross-department management reporting

iCOMPLY – A Managed Approach

Additional benefits:

Weekly full-site scans with Compliance Sheriff®

Access to strategic and technical guideline library

Online resource ‘My Computer My Way’

Achieve AbilityNet accessibility accreditation

The BBC: My Computer My Way

“As a public service website, our goal is to ensure that we serve all our users; with AbilityNet, we are making this objective a reality”

Jonathan Hassell, Head of Usability and Accessibility, BBC

IBM Intranet

Accessible Intranet

Saved 40 % + in bandwidth

Better able to share and adapt information

Virgin Atlantic

New site 68% uplift in revenue to £62m

Won best website at Travel Industry Awards

Legal & General

Relaunched accessible site

+95% Life quote requests online

+90% Life Insurance sales online

100% Return on Investment in 12 months

Saved £200k pa on site maintenance (66% saving)

Speed/effort required to manage content reduced from an average of 5 days to 0.5 days per job

mydonate

Compliance With Confidence

Are you up to the challenge?

Invest in accessibility

Goes hand-in-hand with a mature mobile strategy

Make all your web properties inclusive

www.abilitynet.org.uk/icomply