Website Accessibility Assessment

Challenge: Since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, companies have been becoming more aware of how they engage, and how they are perceived as engaging with the population of over 54 million citizens in the United States who live with recognized disabilities. Specific to the area of electronic communications and technologies, with the incorporation and strengthening of Section 508, originating with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended and included in the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, federal departments and agencies are obligated to make their technology systems available and accessible to persons with disabilities.

While the private sector is not regulated by Section 508, it is becoming common business practice to consider accessibility of technology at all stages of its development and transition, with the underlying interest of capturing all prospective customers for your company’s goods or services.

Opinion: nAblement believes strongly that companies interested in best practices overall are well-served in applying the best practice model to all of their communication and interaction with the public. The most visible forum to communicate with prospective clients and the general public is a company’s web site.

By establishing a best practice not only in message, content and delivery – but further in accessibility and related intuitive functionality- of the web presence, companies achieve both a valuable business objective and send a clear and positive message to the public that they embrace inclusive practices in all of their endeavors.

Approach: nAblement consultants are unique in that they are all professionals with a disability, and many are compelled to take advantage of accessibility of technology and technology-based communication in order to function and thrive in their day-to-day lives. Further, they are all technology professionals, many with a deep understanding of the application of Section 508 and related accessibility standards to technology systems. In supporting a best practice approach to our clients’ web site review- with a critical perspective on overall usability, navigation and accessibility- nAblement professionals, working as a small team with a project manager who acts as the liaison to the client during the engagement, present clear and actionable insights in this effort. By using a clear, pre-designed deliverable document with regular, periodic updates, the web site review creates the opportunity for near real-time rectifying of areas of the site that may fall short of key areas of accessibility.

Solution: The best solution for the creation or adapting of a web site with an emphasis on incorporating the key standards of Section 508 accessibility depends on several factors. Among these are the environment, industry, complexity and size/breadth of the web site, platform uniformity or disparity, and activity on the site. After an initial overview meeting with key client staff, the nAblement team will create a proposal which will include a mock deliverable document for site review, audit and remediation – recommendations to bring the technology into an accessibility compliance level that both parties agree to.

Following a review of and incorporating any requested changes to the deliverable document, the client and nAblement will contract for the web site review and recommendations for bringing the site into compliance with Section 508 standards. Unless otherwise agreed to, the nAblement team will conduct the review remotely with access granted by the client to the site and its design components/architecture/navigation. The nAblement team will make a determination as to which review tool(s) and validators they will utilize in assessing accessibility of the client site.

During the course of the review, the nAblement project manager will provide regular updates, whether electronically, via conference call, or in-person, with deliverable to the designated client representative(s) in order to assess that the project is moving forward and addressing issues of or challenges to accessibility. Upon completion of the project, the nAblement project manager will provide a “completion of project” deliverable document with an overall assessment of the state of the site relative to meeting or exceeding Section 508 accessibility compliance standards.