Accessibility Plan
The purpose of this accessibility plan is to ensure that all individuals, regardless of ability, can access and use your products and services with ease. Your goal is to create an inclusive environment that fosters equity and removes barriers to participation for people with disabilities. This accessibility plan applies to all your products and services.
Goals
- Inclusive Design
Create products and services that enable people of all backgrounds and abilities
- Accessibility Champions
Build an accessibility champions team to promote thinking about diversity and accessibility
- Accessibility Rollout
Plan a staged roll-out of accessibility towards meeting accessibility standards and improving your user experience
- Accessibility Training
Provide training and support to your employees to ensure they can create accessible content and products
- Compliance
Comply with all applicable accessibility laws and regulations
- Sustainability
Continuously improve your accessibility practices and policies
Action Plan
- Research and work with a vendor. Look for a vendor that offers comprehensive services including audits, consulting, remediation, training, and ongoing support. Look for integration capabilities and compatibility with your current platforms and tools, such as content management systems (CMS) and project management tools like JIRA or Bugzilla.
- Ensure the vendor combines both automated tools and manual testing by human experts, including individuals with disabilities.
- Explore and provide the right tools and plugins that allow developers to quickly and easily identify and fix accessibility issues.
- Explore adding an Accessibility checkpoint in your release pipeline.
- Include people with disabilities in your list of personas and as part of user story mapping.
- Conduct an accessibility audit to identify areas for improvement.
- Fix top priorities first. The order of prioritized list is as follows:
- High-priority rules, medium-priority rules, lower-priority rules.
- Or based on scope and traffic of page and low complexity, but high-value Issues.
Action Plan
- Plan a staged roll-out of accessibility based on priority.
- Develop an accessibility policy that outlines your commitment to accessibility.
- Form an Accessibility Champions Team to provide training to our employees on accessibility best practices and guidelines.
- Provide support for each SCRUM team through the Accessibility Champion who is assigned to the SCRUM team.
- Reference accessibility guidelines in your Design System reference site.
- Create an accessibility checklist for all new product and service launches. Include accessibility compliance in Definition of Done against UX-impacted Jira tickets.
- Perform accessibility testing against new prototypes and components in the prototyping tool.
- Ensure all digital content meets WCAG 2.1 AA standards.
- Continuously monitor and evaluate your accessibility practices and policies.
- Testing:
- Establish cadence for accessibility testing, periodic testing. Setup browser tools for developers to test.
- Desk checks at standup before merge requests. Developer demoes fix/change with PO & TO.
- Accessibility browser testing.
- Record for team member not co-located (Loom). Create separate tickets for accessibility backlog.
Responsibilities
The following individuals are responsible for implementing and maintaining this accessibility plan
- Project Manager: In addition to their project management duties, they assist in overseeing and managing the upcoming documentation processes.
- Accessibility Champions: Individuals from various departments who advocate for accessibility, identify issues during reviews, and promote improvements. They are responsible for maintaining department-specific accessibility documentation, attending initial meetings, and later serving as consultants to guide accessible content creation.
By implementing this accessibility plan, you are committed to creating a more inclusive and equitable environment for all individuals. You will continue to prioritize accessibility in all aspects of your business and strive to create a world where everyone can participate fully and equally.
