Integrate accessibility into organization – start at the top

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Personal thoughts after my first real session with stakeholders where I reflect on the business side a bit

Just a few thoughts that I would like to get out of my mind when I think about how to integrate accessibility into an organization.

I’ve tried some approaches and it actually looks like I have to start at the top. Stakeholders must be aware of the importance of accessibility so that the organization can integrate it. But what are best approaches besides exposing concerns around compliance and reputation?

I guess it has to include a business perspective as well. And accessibility is by default good for business. How to prove that with evidence is the hard thing. There is no Google Analytics dimension that is talking about accessibility. And that is a good thing as we should not discriminate and we should think of all users from the start anyway.

I think there are nonetheless some crucial numbers to crush. I started to think about my experiences as a junior product manager when I had to make a business case almost from scratch. It was totally different business, convergent business telephony, but I can apply some marketing thinking also to accessibility in business or other types of organizations.

The first step is to know your market, know the buyer, but to do that you have to know your users

So if we look at it from another perspective – if we are not accessible then we potentially loose a segment of market. So we must then find out what that segment is. But easier to say than done.

There are official resources that can help though – it is possible to get data from different official sources, for example statistical bureau but again it depends on the geography. So it is much easier if you think of a single country versus an international corporation.

Generally speaking there are also other sources – like for example local anti-discrimination studies that use to include research data that can be of help.

I just got my hands on one executive summary, a day before presenting my improvements of quality, performance and accessibility plan to a customer and it was extremely useful to affirm my predictions.

I’ve also followed the expert debate on the International Association of Accessibility Professionals and it’s timing was also perfect. It is not available to non-members, but let me just say that there are still a lot of presumptions out there and it is obvious that different experts have different views on the business case for accessibility.

It is very difficult to prove any thesis if you can not measure it in a way but it was still useful to see multiple views on the matter from accessibility experts with decades of experience.

The short answer is – it’s complicated and there is still no valuable data that can prove any thesis. But we all agree that it sure helps if your site is accessible as it does not exclude anyone.

Author: Bogdan Cerovac

I am IAAP certified Web Accessibility Specialist (from 2020) and was Google certified Mobile Web Specialist.

Work as digital agency co-owner web developer and accessibility lead.

Sole entrepreneur behind IDEA-lab Cerovac (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility lab) after work. Check out my Accessibility Services if you want me to help your with digital accessibility.

Also head of the expert council at Institute for Digital Accessibility A11Y.si (in Slovenian).

Living and working in Norway (🇳🇴), originally from Slovenia (🇸🇮), loves exploring the globe (🌐).

Nurturing the web from 1999, this blog from 2019.

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