Creating a Meaningful Involvement Prototype for WCAG Silver

Cybele Sack,

member of Silver Community Group

September 5, 2018

Purpose of Silver Task Force

A generational transformation from WCAG 2.0/2.1

Some Goals:

• Make it Easier to Use & Maintain
• Include & Test with People with Disabilities
• Not Just Web -- Digital Accessibility Guidelines
• Not Just a Checklist -- Better Conformance Model

Getting Involved in Silver Community Group

Jeanne Spellman, Silver Task Force Co-Chair, came to #A11YTO in June

I got involved in:

• Plain Language Editing
• User Testing Surveys
• Conformance Model
• Meaningful Involvement
• Other (customization, data protection, community hub)

Meaningful Involvement - What Does It Mean?

There are two types:

• MI in Silver itself -- Creating Guidelines and Prototypes
• MI in Accessibility Guidance for Product Owners & Stakeholders

My current focus is on the 2nd, but there’s room for feedback on the 1st too.

THE GOAL: To create a meaningful involvement prototype that guides product owners & stakeholders in improving usability & accessibility through inclusive co-design, rather than relying only on a checklist.

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Meaningful Involvement - Defining Features

Meaningful Involvement (MI) creates opportunity:

1. Recruitment of diversity of PWD early in process
2. Collaboration & participation of PWD in: identifying problems, designing & prioritizing solutions, evaluation & feedback mechanisms
3. Recognition of value of lived experience, skills, abilities, insight & contribution of PWD, support throughout process, compensation
4. Training, employment, mentorship, advancement

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Building the Business Case of MI

Meaningful involvement of PWD benefits organizations:

Innovation: Creates new products & features from unique perspectives & life tools

Barrier Identification: Identifies unforeseen barriers in products earlier in process to create more useful and usable products

Culture Change: helps create a more inclusive culture in the organization

Lowers true costs: considers social costs, reach and impact early

Increases Market Share: Direct involvement with diverse population

Improves trust: builds trust & connection in community by “doing the right thing”

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Meaningful Involvement is a Journey

For many organizations, meaningful involvement is a challenge.

Barriers include:

• Buy-in about value
• Recruitment of PWD
• Lack of Experience in Testing or Co-Design

So they need incremental steps to get there:�PLAN → DO → DEEPEN

Measuring Meaningful Involvement

Silver conformance model (under development) has three levels.

Each level could correspond to a step in MI process.

• Bronze → Planning Stage
• Silver-level → Steps Underway
• Gold → Mature Meaningful Involvement

Feedback needed on each step.

Guideline: Bronze can include plan. Silver needs to be achievable. Gold can be stretch.

Getting to GOLD: Principles, Plan & Strategies

Building a MI program within an organization needs:

Principles:

Partnership, collaboration, person-centredness

Social Model of Disability, edge cases (who is missing?)

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Plan:

Assessment, stakeholder engagement, ID barriers & opps, budget, recruitment

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Strategies for Collaboration:

Use cases, personas, journey maps, solutioning, usability testing, measurement

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Getting to GOLD - Other MI Factors to Consider

Additional aspects worthy of attention include:

1. Customization (understanding conflicts & opportunities)
2. Data Protection (privacy, disclosure, profiling, bias, consent)
3. PWD Involvement in Defining Questions & research problems
4. Deepening Relationships with PWD: Identifying roles & skills
5. Creating pathways to better employment for PWD

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Certified GOLD - Organizations or their Agents?

Problem:

Many organizations outsource accessibility & wouldn’t know how to evaluate who could provide gold-level meaningful involvement.

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Possible Solutions:

Certifying External Agents of Change (consultants, agencies) to Gold-level

Certifying Auditors to Evaluate MI Programs

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Considerations:

Could other non-certified accessibility consultants provide bronze/silver advice?

Some providers & auditors might exist in domains outside digital accessibility

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Questions about Best Practices

15 MINUTES MAX

(After question break, discuss Organizational Capacity & Do Activities)

Biggest Barrier: Organizational Capacity

SilverTF needs to design standards that work for a diverse range of organizations:

• Different types (corporate, e-commerce, government, non-profit, start-ups, social media, big data & tech companies)
• Different sizes (SMEs, mid-size, large, international)
• Different sectors (health, finance & business, education, transportation)
• Different locations (international scope, varied cultures and resources)

All with specific needs and barriers. How does one-size-fits one work here, and how to create standards that Get them to GOLD?

What are models to determine & improve readiness?

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Models to Identify Readiness & Build Capacity

Engage in design exercises today on three models for entry to MI. Whichever model you choose, remember to reinforce an ongoing learner & sharing mentality.

1 - Decision Tree (Identify Readiness & Pathways)

Series of questions and steps that divide pathways to get to GOLD

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2 - Bridges to GOLD (Identify multiple & intersecting journeys)

Build multiple/alternate pathways to GOLD. How can the strongest ones be reinforced over time? What bridges already exist & how can we learn from them?

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3 - Leap Frog (Identify barriers & ways to hop over them)

What is gentle path to spring forward? What are primary hurdles and ways around them?

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Collaborative Design Exercises

1. Split into Three Groups (2-3 people/group):
1. Decision Tree (or flow chart)
2. Bridges to GOLD
3. Leap-Frog

2. Brainstorm factors to include in model (e.g. org size/type/sector, disability types)

3. Brainstorm what GOLD looks like (end point - iterative)

4. Use your model type to plan steps to get to GOLD level of MI (consider barriers and ways over/around/through them)

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Questions & Insights from Design Exercises

1 - What did you learn from what you did? How can that insight apply to this problem of building capacity in MI?

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2 - How can this exercise be applied to identify the steps & path to Gold? Are these steps a matter of smaller scale or partial completion? Should planning be only at beginning or at each stage?

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3 - What insights, from exercise or your own co-design practice, apply to auditing conformance? Is this best done at level of component-level criteria or in global or project-based way?

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Proposed Timeline to Develop MI Prototype

Sept/Oct 2018 - Identify Best Practices (people & documents). Feedback, insights & recommendations from PWD & orgs

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Mid-Oct 2018: Prelim Report: Best Practices & Pathways to Implementation

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Winter 2018/19: Discuss & Test Co-Design to Generate Insights from PWD & users

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Spring 2019: Pilot Co-Design Sessions of MI Prototype, with users/orgs & PWDs together

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May 2019: Report: Best Practice, Strategies & Challenges for Implementation

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Summer/Fall 2019: Identify methods to engage orgs & measure success, update prototype

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