7 Steps for Increasing Your Org s Accessible Digital Content Know-How. Becky Bernauer, Kim Wee, Tamara Sawyer, Jennie Delisi 12/7/2017

Transcription

1 7 Steps for Increasing Your Org s Accessible Digital Content Know-How Becky Bernauer, Kim Wee, Tamara Sawyer, Jennie Delisi 12/7/2017

2 Minnesota By the Numbers Minnesota population: 5,485,238 1 % of Minnesotans reporting 1 or more disabilities in 2014: 5.4% - age % - age % population. 2

3 Minnesota Employees/Government Minnesota state agencies: Executive Branch: over 70 agencies, boards and commissions 3 Minnesota state employees: More than 34,000 4

4 Case example Minnesota Department of Education Gets a large % of general state funding About 400 employees About 830 webpages on public site Average 47,000 page views per day 13,238 PDFs on those public site webpages (plus a large number of internal use PDFs) To Contrast: Minnesota Management and Budget has about 250 employees Minnesota Department of Health has over 1500 employees Minnesota IT Services has over 2095 employees

5 Office of Accessibility Minnesota State Accessibility Law Minnesota State Accessibility Standard Office of Accessibility Accessibility Coordinator Group Goal of breaking through silos Relationship supports both Office of Accessibility and Coordinators

6 Seven Sensational Suggestions

7 1. Make a Law, Make it a Good Law! Create a standard, and define scope It s got to have teeth supporting orders and legislation Define an accessibility office and officer Money, staff, resources

8 2. Philosophy/Framework Electronic formats start with IT Procurement, coding, setting up software and platforms Make electronic content? You need to learn a11y E.g. templates can be easily broken and errors may be missed! Decision tree for when something is not compliant Assessing for compliance Fixing things out of compliance Decision making: what to do when not compliant, or not compliant yet

9 Philosophy includes knowing what you can t do Make it easy for people to use a vendor: to remediate documents, contract for accessibility audits and contract for training

10 Online Resource & Local Trainings May Not Match Accessibility checkers don t check against Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 AA standards (Minnesota s Accessibility Standard) Vendor online documentation regarding accessibility tends to teach to their automated checker findings As vendors update trainings, how to stay on top of changes? How do they test/verify their training guidelines/techniques? Local training by outside vendors and organizations may not train to your specific standards You do not always know how they have updated their trainings

11 3. Accessibility Snowball Formalized accessibility advisory board - responsible for getting law in place Accessibility coordinator group Communities of practice subject matter experts Leadership/middle management The doers

12 4. The Snowball Effect - Building a Network Awareness presentations by CIAO expanding Accessibility Coordinators Staff assigned to accessibility tasks Volunteers self-identified Coordinators identified subject matter experts Experts/resources for troubleshooting Subject matter experts Accessibility coordinators People who can connect you, even if they don t know the answers!

13 5. Communities of Practice Identifying issues and work flow gaps where accessibility is not well defined Testing/learning best practices Publishing/communicating information to entire staff and outside groups Current Communities of Practice PDF InDesign elearning Maps/GIS (Geographic Information System)

14 Starting at Square 1 Awareness and training go hand in hand! Events of interest for awareness GAAD (Global Accessibility Awareness Day) Presentations at Conferences Awareness of the need to get trained Those trained, make others aware Gate keepers are key No posting inaccessible content (documents, intranet and web pages)

15 Square 1 is a Mosaic Universal design for learning! Trainings for employees Social media (Yammer) Interactive displays Conference sessions Contacts and resources (need 24/7 access to resources) Agency Intranet sites Office of Accessibility SharePoint pages Office of Accessibility web pages

16 Square 1 Leads to a Trail of A11y Tiles Document accessibility is easily taught and learned Classes should be adjusted to accommodate the learners Basics that should be taught include: Word documents Styles Alt text Tables Hyperlinks Color and white space PDFs Walk the tag tree Use the accessibility checker and fix problems

17 6. Change of Attitude It s All About Me! To change the potential It s not my job attitude i.e., What does it do for me? How accessibility benefits the document owner Increased productivity through use of styles Dynamic Table of Contents Navigation Pane Consistent look lends to credibility for agency They may themselves become disabled one day

18 Change of Attitude It s All About Me And You! Who needs accessible documents? 1 in 4 will have a disability by the time they retire How accessible documents benefit ALL end users Searchable, usable, dynamic content Provide examples Curb cuts designed for wheelchairs but benefits all who use them Use of personas

19 7. Minnesota Outreach 2015/2016 In Person Training Numbers: Multiple agencies shared their training numbers with us (8 large agencies) Individuals were counted for each class they took (same person may be counted several times) 3274 Global Accessibility Awareness Day Attendance: E.g. 2015: about 1000 people

20 Minnesota Online Databank Office of Accessibility webpage, includes info for: Developers Document creators Procurement Office of Accessibility SharePoint site Agencies have webpages, intranets with information Statewide communities through closed social network (Yammer)

21 Minnesota-created elearning Gap between initial training for all staff and getting new staff trained as they are hired. Updated our Microsoft Word Accessibility basics (101 level) 4 PDF Accessibility 101 webinars, which will be archived and posted

22 Baby Steps Enforcement challenges and lack of training an ongoing issue: Positive reinforcement Access to support Increasing networks

23 Conclusion 1. Make a law, make it a good law 2. Philosophy/framework 3. Start accessibility groups 4. Build a network 5. Communities of practice 6. Change of attitude 7. Visibility

24 Citations _tcm pdf

25 Questions? Resources: State of Minnesota s Office of Accessibility website Contact information: Becky Bernauer: becky.bernauer@state.mn.us Kim Wee: kim.wee@state.mn.us Jennie Delisi: jennie.delisi@state.mn.us Tamara Sawyer: tamara.sawyer@state.mn.us