The Business Case for Web Accessibility. Facilitator s Notes for this Module

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1 The Business Case for Web Accessibility About this Module: Goal: In this module we will review how an accessible website can benefit your business or organization Format: PowerPoint presentation Time: About 20 Minutes Potential Audience: Employers/business people; web and IT professionals, managers and supervisors, higher education administration Materials needed: Hard copy of presentation optional Facilitator s Notes for this Module See General Guidance Tips for Successful Facilitation document. Be sure to review the notes for this module prior to the session so that you can go through the material efficiently. Facilitators Notes (Slide 1) This module provides an argument for web accessibility in business terms opportunities to make money, save money and get your product or services in front of more people. Page 1

2 Facilitator s Notes (Slide 2) Change this slide to reflect your regional information. Trainers, be sure to advise participants that this training is not intended as legal advice. Page 2

3 Facilitators Notes (Slide 3) Use this slide for educational audiences. This slide invites people who work in the education field to consider how many people use and interact with their websites on a regular basis. Smashing Magazine created a Showcase of Academic and Higher Education Websites in March of 2010: Page 3

4 Facilitators Notes (Slide 4) Use this slide for business audiences. This slide invites people who work in the business world to consider how many people use and interact with their websites on a regular basis. The US Department of Commerce tracks e-commerce on a quarterly basis, in the 2nd quarter of 2011, American s spent over $47 Million online which was a 17% increase from the same time a year ago. Who wouldn t want to tap into this market? For the latest e-commerce report, visit: Page 4

5 Facilitators Notes (Slide 5) The internet is an important tool for marketing and outreach in today s marketplace. It allows you to easily and relatively inexpensively outreach to a broad audience with only one tool. Ask your audience to consider how many groups they market to with their web page. Ask them to consider how many people with disabilities or older people may be included in those groups. We know that people with disabilities represent 20% of the population. Does it stand to reason that 20% of their customers may experience a disability of some sort? Page 5

6 Facilitators Notes (Slide 6) The average number of people with a disability is 20%, but this varies by age group. Between the ages of years about 10.5 % of people have a disability, from years about 11.1 % of people have a disability, from years 19.4% of people have a disability, and from years about 28.1 % of people have a disability, from years % of people have a disability. If you re service is geared toward the older crowd a much larger percentage of the population you serve could have disabilities. (Brault, 2008). Page 6

7 Facilitators Notes (Slide 7) For audience members with visual impairments, describe the graphic. The graphic on this slide shows a man with a cup of coffee in front of a laptop computer. He has to sit so close to the screen to be able to read it that his nose is making an indentation in the screen. The percentage of older people who are using the internet is increasing significantly this is a real issue to consider when designing accessible and usable web sites. Page 7

8 Facilitators Notes (Slide 8) Sensory, physical and cognitive disabilities all increase with age. Each of these disability groups will rely on usable and accessible websites in order to continue using online services. Page 8

9 Facilitators Notes (Slide 9) People who have low literacy attempt to read everything on the screen and it can be a laborious process. It is recommended that web designers use text geared toward people with 6 th to 8 th grade reading levels (Nielson, 2005). It should be noted that not all people with LD experience a learning disability in reading. Fifteen percent of the U.S. population, or one in seven Americans, has some type of learning disability, according to the National Institutes of Health. Difficulty with basic reading and language skills are the most common learning disabilities. It should be noted that as many as 80% of students with learning disabilities have reading problems (LD Online, 2011). Page 9

10 Facilitators Notes (Slide 10) See background information at What is the main goal of your site? If it is to increase market share or outreach, an accessible website means that it will be usable to a broader audience. Many organizations benefit financially when they have a broader market share (i.e. more sales, more students, more funding, more successful outreach and dissemination, more successful fund raising efforts). Accessible websites can decrease costs by decreasing customer support services or finding information online versus calling into a technical assistance center or helpdesk. Perhaps your organization could reduce the need to process payments or donations from paper and pencil format by allowing people to successfully complete financial transactions online or complete applications for employment or services online. Improved accessibility can translate to improved usability including for those who use technology, those that are not adept at interacting with complex technology, and people with low literacy. Search engine ranking is critical to the visibility of your organization. To identify relevant results, most search engines search text, page navigation and headings. A properly formatted, accessible page contains descriptive text, simple page navigation and a clear heading structure Page 10

11 which increases the visibility of your site to these search engines. Well formatted, accessible sites do not feature mouse-overs, an item that search engines cannot access. Effectively using Style sheets ensures that your site will appear as you designed it on multiple devices (i.e. smart phones, tablet computers, etc.) and in multiple formats. People who use low bandwidth and people with older technology benefit from alt text for images and other non-text objects because their connections are not good enough to download a lot of images or other media. Using styled text instead of bitmap images ensure faster downloading as well. Users with low bandwidth connections can choose to browse with images off and view the alt text tags to decide if an image is worth downloading Using clear and consistent design, navigation, and links helps to ensure that users open only the pages they need and do not waste time and processing on information obtained in error from confusing navigation. Facilitators Notes (Slide 11) Accessible web sites can save your company money and time! Accessible sites are well structured. This can result in decreased personnel costs for maintaining your site. Defining presentation through an external style sheet and using proper mark-up for structure makes maintenance easier. Site designers avoid having to adjust each bitmap image, if mark-up languages are used correctly, changes can be made to the Page 11

12 external style sheet to update the entire site. Correctly used Mark-up and Style sheets also facilitate efficient debugging of sites. When content is repurposed for mobile devices, styled text will not change its appearance in different configurations. Also, because these sites are well structured, the amount of server capacity needed is reduced resulting in savings in server costs and a reduction in server load. Also, a well-organized site will reduce unwanted page download and thereby reduce server requests. Facilitators Notes (Slide 12) Corporate social responsibility calls for an organization to conduct business ethically and to operate in such a way that it treats internal and external stakeholders ethically, increases human development, and is good for society and the environment. An accessible website is an excellent way to demonstrate that your organization is dedicated to access for all potential customers, thereby demonstrating corporate social responsibility. While the ADA does not currently require accessible websites, many organizations have found themselves in legal trouble because their websites were not accessible. In some cases, the businesses win and in some cases they lose. You have to ask yourself if it is worth the negative publicity, time and expense to defend your organization against the legal trouble that could arise. Lawsuits are not limited to business organizations, many universities and other institutions are beginning to see lawsuits over inaccessible applications or testing features that are offered online. State and local governments are having similar issues for not meeting the requirements of section 508. It is also worth noting that the Department of Justice is currently Page 12

13 creating regulations around web accessibility for Title II and Title III. These new regulations are expected to be released in Universal design calls for design that is usable to most; it will ensure that your site is accessible to the broadest range of users possible; it will ensure that your site can be used on multiple devices, and by people with multiple skill levels. Facilitators Notes (Slide 13) Consider the business benefits of ensuring access to online recruiting and retention services. A study of online job recruiting web sites was conducted by the Employment and Disability Institute at Cornell University in The study focused on the accessibility of web sites that companies used for providing human resources information to employees as well as web sites used for posting job openings and accepting online job applications. This chart shows how extensively HR departments use the web for various HR functions such as providing employee training online, giving employees an avenue to do functions related to benefits online, providing benefits information online and posting job openings online. If these web sites are not designed to be accessible, they may not be usable by people using some types of assistive technology or by people with some types of disabilities. Not only does this mean potential complaints against the company, but it also means an increased workload for the HR staff as they will have to complete these functions either in person or on the phone with current and future employees. Page 13

14 For people with visual impairments, describe the chart. This chart shows the degree (reported as a great deal, some and not at all) that surveyed companies use the web for four HR-related services. For online employee training, 65% used the web a great deal or some. For online benefits self-service, 57% used the web a great deal or some. For online benefits information, 82% used the web a great deal or some. For online job postings, 90% used the web a great deal or some. Read more about this study in Digital Commons at: Facilitators Notes (Slide 14) As part of the same study, the Employment and Disability Institute also evaluated the websites of several companies as well as some of the most popular job search boards, such as Monster.com, for accessibility based on the Federal Section 508 standards for web accessibility. Results of those evaluations showed that almost none of the web-based job recruiting resources met accessibility standards as defined by the Federal Section 508 Standards. This suggests that some people with disabilities will not be able to use these publicly available services. The result is that people interested in using a company s website to apply for jobs may be unable to; they may be forced to disclose their disability in order to request an accommodation just to apply for a job. Page 14

15 There has been some precedent set for accessibility in this area. Monster Worldwide, Inc. and the NFB entered into a settlement agreement to make this job search site accessible. Under this agreement, Monster agreed to do the following: Contribute $50,000 to the Commonwealth to fund the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind s (MCB) job internship program Provide $50,000 to serve as the title sponsor of the NFB s annual convention in 2013 Monster will make its desktop and mobile websites fully and equally accessible Mobile applications will be made accessible within two years Monster will ensure that the templates employers use to post job advertisements on its site will be fully and equally accessible within six months Monster will also train its customer service representatives to assist users who are blind and will establish a standing committee to oversee implementation of the agreement and other issues related to accessibility in the future Monster has also agreed to work with the NFB to encourage higher education programs to incorporate accessible design and assistive technology in to their core curricula Facilitators Notes (Slide 15) A similar study was conducted of Community Colleges across the U.S. looking at recruiting and other student services that are provided online. Page 15

16 A survey of student services personnel at community colleges showed that the web is used extensively for recruiting, course registration and admissions. Again, anything that is not accessible means an increased workload for college admissions staff who have to provide this information on an as-needed basis to current and potential students. Describe the chart for participants who are visually impaired: The chart shows the percent of colleges offering various services on the web. 94% of respondents offer classes online 95% offer the class schedule online 52% offer the course catalog online 69% offer bursar billing services online 81% offer course registration online 87% offer financial aid information or applications online 87% offer admissions application online Facilitators Notes (Slide 16) As part of the same study, selected pages from a sample of 30 community college websites were evaluated for accessibility using Section 508 web accessibility criteria. For additional information on accessibility in higher education, see the following: Page 16

17 Facilitators Notes (Slide 17) National Network: Please insert your center s contact information into this slide. Conclude by reminding participants that the training materials were produced by the Northeast ADA Center in collaboration with the ADA National Network. Remind them of the free and confidential technical assistance and other services available from your local ADA Center and from the ADA Centers throughout the country. Mention the ADA TN line at Page 17