How to Juggle Different Teams at Different Places in Their Accessibility Journey

WordPress Accessibility Day 2024

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Set an accessibility baseline for a team or product

​

• Facilitate collaboration and progress across teams

​

• Consider your current approach to accessibility and how to best move forward

Who we are:

Lorna lives in Washington, DC, and has worked for Sage Publishing for more than 20 years, with a focus on digital accessibility for the last 12. �

Lorenzo is a UX Specialist based in London and has been at Sage for six years. The bulk of his work is on digital accessibility, but his role also includes analytics and information architecture.

Very brief history of accessibility at Sage:

2013:

• Customer reached out to Sage about one of our products�
• They’d asked a third-party evaluator to assess our product, and the results were not pretty�
• We didn’t know what digital accessibility was
• Lots of self-education and training of several individuals

Very brief history of accessibility at Sage (cont.):

2013 to Present:

• Sage routinely tests products for WCAG compliance�
• Knowledge still largely held by several individuals, but that’s changing�
• Internal systems now coming under review

Why We Chose This Topic:

Sage creates and supports its own products in-house, but it also:

• Purchases companies and products that complement the company vision and mission
• Works with third-party vendors that support Sage content
• Utilizes third-party products for internal processes

​

All of this means we have a lot of teams in different places in their a11y journey that all need support.

Establishing a baseline:

• Make accessibility part of the acquisition, vendor, or product design conversation
• Request documentation
• Incorporate it into contracts
• Build it into product requirements
• Commission an external review or conduct an internal assessment
• Once evaluation results are available, can begin discussion on remediation plan
• Likely that the less accessible the product, the more education and training the team will need

​

​

Global Initiatives and Strategies:

• Organized a voluntary, cross-company accessibility working group (AWG)
• Work with company Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and leveraging combined voice
• Promotes efficiencies
• Share ideas, successes, workflow ideas, challenges, documentation; avoids siloing

​

• Provide training and education tailored to the audience
• Don’t reinvent the wheel; put it on a different vehicle
• Process mapping and UX scorecard which incorporates WCAG criteria and a11y maturity level
• Active Teams / Slack channels to promote ad hoc communication
• Cite ROIs and risks

​

• Continually reaching out and being proactive; keeping accessibility in all conversations (being persistent but enthusiastic!)

​

• Pushing back to introduce ownership and accountability—skin in the game

Case Study: Epigeum�Online courses developed collaboratively with universities

• Purchased by Sage in March 2023
• Team already aware of a11y but unsure where to start
• Collaborated with a11y team to have the product evaluated by Tech For All (TFA)
• Took the evaluation and immediately focused on remediation
• Divided into platform and content—sometimes lines blurry
• Pro-active in seeking education and training
• Pro-active in exploring solutions before reaching out
• Have actually redesigned elements for accessibility
• Consider a11y now in enhancements and part of BAU

​

​

Case Study: Hubro�Business simulations

• Purchased by Sage in June 2023
• Team not familiar with a11y but assessment became part of purchase process
• Collaborated with a11y team to have the product evaluated by Tech For All (TFA)
• Took the evaluation and have slowly focused on remediation
• Primary challenge was product built on system that’s not inherently accessible
• Very small team with a11y nearly a single-person effort > encourage cross-team collaboration beyond single developer
• Still working on making a11y part of BAU

​

​

Case Study: Sage Journals�Academic journals platform

• Hosted on Atypon’s Literatum platform since 2015
• Internal Sage team works with Atypon team
• Adds a layer of communication and scheduling alignment
• Not Atypon’s only customer
• Multiple priorities
• Thankfully, Atypon is committed to accessibility

​

​

Case Study: Plandek�Metrics and analytics

• Sage Technology signed agreement with Plandek in spring 2024
• Delivers metrics and analytics to assist teams
• Accessibility was not part of the pre-contract discussion
• Reached out to them re: the product’s accessibility
• Not on their radar initially but…
• They have since created a VPAT and committed to assessing their product against WCAG 2.2 AA
• Always worth asking about a11y

​

​

​

Case Study: Products Created and Supported Internally�Books, courses, business cases, datasets, videos, and more

Challenges:

• Executive buy-in
• Notification about projects / products
• A11y resides with individual, not role
• Siloing of accessibility information and best practices
• The decision to de-scope, resulting in bolting on rather than building in

​

Case Study: Products Created and Supported Internally: Challenges (cont’d)

​

​

​

Boehm’s Curve

​

​

​

Case Study: Products Created and Supported Internally

Successes:

• Increased appreciation of efficiencies gained by building a11y in
• Ability to build relationships within and across teams
• “Shifting left” more
• Incorporating user testing with those with disabilities and better UX practices
• Consideration of a11y and remediation of existing a11y issues now BAU for most Sage products

​

Promoting Ownership and Accountability:�Education:

Provide general education

• Lunch and Learns
• Department presentations
• ERG presentations
• Articles in newsletters

Train people who can educate their own specialist teams

• Content creators
• QA Teams
• Developers
• Designers (UX, UI)

​

It is a heartwarming thing when teams request training and bring their own problems and projects they are working on.

Promoting Ownership and Accountability:�Empowerment:

Empower staff through education

• We promote “everyday accessibility” for example
• Accessibility work doesn’t have to be intimidating
• Awareness is effective, showing how much one can do without much training
• Checklists are a place to start with workflow incorporation
• Review work, but encourage teams to be proactive in presenting an answer before coming to you
• Cross-pollinate teams by showing how a success in one area can be applied elsewhere

Recommendations and Final Thoughts

• Mention accessibility early and often
• Don’t be afraid to be proactive—reach out to teams, to vendors, to partners
• Don’t be discouraged if at first people don’t hear you—their top priority may be different in the moment
• Meet teams where they are
• Reuse / adapt resources
• Find a way to build a community, even if only a shared chat
• Advocate to take accessibility out of the individual and into the role

​

You Can Do This!

​

Questions?

WordPress Accessibility Day 2024