Accessibility Capability Maturity Model

Accessibility Maturity Model

Maturity Models have been around since the mid-80’s as a way of measuring an organization’s level of performance in terms of both formal capability and practices, from ad-hoc to policy-driven to a level of innovation and refinement. While Maturity Models were originally used in software development companies, they can be applied to a wide range of practices and industries.

Typical structure of maturity models include defined levels of maturity, essential processes, organization and strategy, goals and optimization. Even though many of the maturity models are presented in linear terms, it is not uncommon for an organization to be involved in several different areas concurrently. Accessibility Maturity Models are no exception in this regard.

From “Model” to “Process”

While the term “model” might infer a static state, Accessibility Maturity Models typically refer to an ongoing process for the institution employing the model. Typically, the models describe a process including the following five steps:

- Initial awareness
- Managed efforts
- Defined strategy
- Regularly Assessed/Adjusted
- Optimization

Most organizations can define their practices according to one or more of these steps. Ultimately nobody really “matures” completely, as nobody can ever be completely optimized in the face of non-stop technological advances and the constant innovation in the digital information space.

Capability for Maturity

Truly, these models are actually measuring the CAPABILITY of your organization more than the current state of your digital accessibility maturity, as in what you could determine based on an audit of your digital media.

More than a measure of your product, it is an inventory of your tools, materials, policies, practices, quality control, training, research and development, and strategic plan and outlook. Your Accessibility Capability Maturity is a measure of your ability to function and perform as a member of your professional industry and community, as well as in modern society as a whole.

Measuring Your Own Maturity

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) provides a robust framework for an Accessibility Maturity Model, which encompasses many excellent considerations. They encourage organizations to make use of it as a starting point for their own models, customizing it to match your structure and needs. You can check it out at: https://www.w3.org/TR/maturity-model/.

Accessibility Capability Maturity Models will vary in specifics across organizations, but most will have levels similar to the following:

Initial/Ad Hoc

All organizations begin here, even if they are past this point when they learn about Accessibility Maturity Models. At this level results are sporadic and inconsistent, as are any efforts towards accessibility.

Awareness

At this stage organizations begin to recognize the significance and importance of accessibility. Some sort of effort to raise awareness is made, typically with some introductory training. Guidelines for accessibility might also be introduced.

Compliance

At this level, organizations begin to introduce accessible workflows and focus on satisfying the basic accessibility requirements of different legal and regulatory frameworks. Accessibility audits may be performed, as well as a focused formal effort to address accessibility concerns.

Integration

Accessibility is integrated into the organization’s processes, considered from the beginning of a project’s lifecycle. This is done through formalizing accessibility requirements into the design and development standards, developing the relevant accessibility testing procedures, and providing training to staff.

Optimization

Focusing on continuous improvements in accessibility across the board. Accessibility testing is thorough and robust, combining automated and manual testing with specific usability testing with individuals with disabilities. Accessibility metrics are tracked alongside proactive efforts to discover and address accessibility challenges.

Innovation

At the highest level of maturity, organizations are leading the way with accessibility practices, and go beyond the basic minimum requirements of legal and technical conformance. Organizations at this level seek innovative solutions to accessibility challenges and contribute to accessibility standards and best practices, continuously pushing the boundaries of accessible design and technology.

Benefits of Using an Accessibility Capability Maturity Model

By providing a roadmap for organizations to follow as they evolve from basic reactive approaches to accessibility challenges, the Accessibility Capability Maturity Model helps organizations achieve a more comprehensive, proactive, and effective approach to accessibility.

When an organization progresses through the stages of the Accessibility Capability Maturity Model, they can improve their digital accessibility, increase their customer base, enhance user experiences for people with disabilities, as well as mitigate legal and reputational risks associated with inaccessible content.

Applying the Accessibility Capability Maturity Model to Higher Education

There are many different methods of administration being practiced at the various higher education institutions in the U.S., but the needs of accessibility often lead to similar concerns and challenges.

While most higher educational institutions have unique considerations separate from those of software developers, there are many similarities which make following an Accessibility Maturity Model an effective way to achieve the same goals, and progress through the stages of accessibility improvement.

Following are some of the typical approaches followed by higher educational institutions.

Create Accessibility Policies

Most institutions have established policies requiring all digital content and electronic information systems to meet accessibility standards such as WCAG 2.1 and Section 508.

Providing Training

Faculty and Staff must be given accessibility training in an ongoing basis to ensure currency with new innovations in technology, and with legal standards as more accessibility cases make their way through the courts.

Accessible Procurement

Enforcing requirements for accessibility in the purchase of technology and digital media makes an enormous difference in the ability of an institution to satisfy the legal requirements for accessibility. Effective training on how to evaluate the accessibility of products and media allows institutions to avoid being suckered with a false or misleading VPAT. Establishing penalty structures for accessibility issues discovered in the first year after a purchase can be a great incentive for vendors to provide more accessible products and services.

Collaborate with Disability Services

Engage your local campus Disability Services Office. Most higher education institutions have a wealth of expertise and experience helping students with disabilities every day. Make sure their knowledge and expertise isn’t being ignored or wasted, include them in relevant efforts and activities, include them on procurement committees, accreditation reviews, strategic planning initiatives, etc. Get to know these people, take them out to lunch, listen to what they have to say.

Leverage Accessibility Standards

Most higher education institutions have some sort of legal requirements to follow accessibility standards. Even if they aren’t legally required to follow an accessibility standard, they probably still like to consider themselves as moral and ethical institutions, at the very least. Accessibility standards are not only a roadmap for testing and ensuring accessibility, the implication is that people who follow the standards are good people, and people who do not follow the standards are bad – and probably lazy, immoral, selfish, greedy, puppy-kicking monsters. Let’s be honest here.

Student Involvement

Another invaluable asset all higher education institutions have available to them are students. Students tend to be interested in opportunities to get experience, to make a difference, and to help people. Connecting students with your accessibility efforts is not only a great way to get cheap labor in exchange for valuable life-enriching work, it is a valuable way to increase the likelihood those student workers will carry forth their newly-gained knowledge and concern for accessibility, and spread it around as they live their lives. What a great life-long lesson.

Take-Aways

Awareness is the first step to maturity. With a little guidance, your natural desire to be excellent can lead you to new heights and empower you to make substantive changes that benefit everyone. Our world grows more wonderful and more worth living in, the more people take on the responsibility of doing good work and looking out for each other. Accessibility Capability Maturity Models are a great way to drive positive change in whatever type of organization you want to lead.

Where is Your Organization on the Accessibility Capability Maturity Model?

Sources

https://www.w3.org/TR/maturity-model/

https://www.levelaccess.com/blog/the-digital-accessibility-maturity-model-introduction-to-damm/

https://www.cccaccessibility.org/acmm

https://www.tpgi.com/the-accessibility-maturity-lifecycle/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model

August 10, 2020August 10, 2020

MS Word Accessibility

As the most popular word processing program out there, it seems like a huge misstep to not address the basic best practices for creating accessible documents in MS Word.

Recognizing how much power is in MS Word, I am only going to address some of the big items with most impact on accessibility.

There is so much that MS Word can do, and so much that can be done to enhance accessibility in MS Word, that it deserves a week of its own posts.

For today, I want to show you how to:

Style text with headings and make them look the way you want them to look,
Add an alternate text description to an image,
Run the MS Word Accessibility Checker.

So let’s get busy!

Heading Styles in MS Word

In MS Word there is a “Styles” panel on the home tab.

MS Word styles pane — MS Word Style Pane

When you have your cursor in a line of text and you click on one of the styles, it applies that style to your line of text.

Pretty easy.

However, I often hear people complain that they don’t like the way the default styles appear.

It is at this moment that I realize this individual doesn’t know about the Style Manager in MS Word.

If you press ALT + CONTROL + SHIFT + S you will open the Styles Manager.

On the far right of each style is a pull-down menu toggle. In this menu is an option to “Modify Style”.

With the Modify Style window open, you can adjust the font, size, color, and a variety of formatting details.

In this way you can adjust all the Heading styles to look however you like them to look.

Now the Heading styles can make your document accessible while not making your document unpleasing to the eye.

Alternate Text in MS Word

When you insert an image in MS Word, it is easy to associate an alternate text description for it.

Right-click on the image, and select “Edit Alt Text…” from the menu that appears.

MS Word Edit Alt Text option from the right-click menu.

When the Alt Text pane appears, erase the automatically generated alt text.

Provide a valid description of your image that will help someone understand what the image is communicating if they are unable to see the image.

MS Word Accessibility Checker

MS Word now includes an accessibility checker.

You can run an accessibility test on your document and have MS Word help you fix issues that might cause problems for some readers.

MS word Info screen with menu options highlighted to correspond with instruction steps for starting an accessibility check. — MS Word Info Screen with Accessibility Check initiating path highlighted.

To start an accessibility check:

Go to the “File” menu and click on “Info”.
From the Info screen, click on “Inspect Document”.
Next, click “Check Accessibility”.

MS Word will process your document and alert you to any content that requires additional attention.

After you address any accessibility issues that were found, run the Accessibility Checker again. When you have addressed all the accessibility issues the Accessibility Checker is capable of finding, your results will tell you there were no accessibility issues discovered.

MS Word Accessibility Checker reporting No Accessibility issues were found. — Accessibility Checker with good results.

NOTE: While this is comforting, and a good start, you can not trust the Accessibility Checker to find all the accessibility issues in your document!

Automated accessibility testing can only find less than 40% of the issues that cause accessibility issues.

So you will have to continue to be aware and practice good authoring practices to make sure you are creating documents that are as accessible as possible.

But wait, there’s more!

We will be spending more time in MS Word in the coming weeks and looking more closely at some of the accessibility capabilities it has.

For now, consider your own style and how you might like to make your Heading styles appear, and take comfort that there is an accessibility checker in MS Word that has your back and will help keep you on the right track for creating accessible documents.

Incorporate these simple things into your MS Word workflow, and you will be creating more accessible documents as a normal part of your day to day routine.

In other words you will be adding value and increasing the effectiveness of your learning materials by ensuring they can be accessed and used by ALL your students.

Thanks for being that person, and thanks for reading!

January 18, 2020January 18, 2020

Fear of Accessibility in Higher Education

Despite our advances in technology and social awareness, when it comes to disability awareness, the cruel ignorance of a bygone era lingers in our education system.

People with disabilities are still seen as tragic figures, and the concepts of digital accessibility are as alien to many as little green beings from Alpha Centauri.

Happily, things are changing and the fear of accessibility is being ushered out as a wave of awareness and new tools are being introduced into the curriculum.

Why is Accessibility Scary?

I actually don’t think accessibility is scary- even though I can often smell the fear on people.

In my time as an Accessibility Specialist I have encountered a lot of fear surrounding the topic. On the worst days, I have seen the fear of accessibility render otherwise intelligent and modern-thinking people into caricatures from an ignorant and darker period of human history.

Typically misplaced and unnecessary, fear of accessibility can be a difficult stumbling block. However, I believe this fear is mostly unfounded and misunderstood. In fact, it is largely fear of the unknown, not fear of accessibility.

Fear of the unknown is a natural and powerful emotion that can be useful in some cases, but in terms of accessibility, it is probably not serving you well.

Unchecked in the absence of knowledge, the fear of accessibility can run rampant through your mind, creating all kinds of false boogeymen, such as:

Accessibility is difficult.
Accessibility means ugly and plain content.
Accessibility means huge legal penalties for getting it wrong.
Accessibility is expensive.
Accessibility is something you feel you should know more about- but you’ve been hiding your shame for so long it would be professional suicide to reveal it…

Accessibility is beginning to be perceived as one of the basic skills and knowledge sets for modern professionals. Does that scare you?

Don’t let it scare you. Let it motivate you.

Happily, there are lots of free resources available to help with accessibility. In fact, you actually have a chance to become one of the more knowledgeable people in your organization when it comes to accessibility.

We are living in the sweet spot of history where it isn’t necessarily difficult to learn about accessibility, but it is still novel and rare to find someone with good accessibility skills in most organizations.

I encourage you to capitalize on this opportunity, and learn the skills that will help you do well by doing good for others.

Ignorance and Fear

One of the hardest parts of addressing the fear of accessibility surrounds our rapid cultural and societal growth and change over the past century. We don’t all find enlightenment at the same time, and many among us still drag their feet in different ways, lingering in the attitudes of the past.

It is still the case that awareness of accessibility is often limited to those who have a disability, or those who have a close friend or family member with a disability.

Most people are blissfully ignorant of what it means to have a disability, and even more ignorant of the concept of social responsibility that is necessary to ensure accessibility in a modern democratic society.

The concepts and techniques required to transform something inaccessible into something accessible can seem very intimidating as well. Technological standards often create their own fear in and of themselves.

Further, issues of legal sensitivity and disability etiquette can also blindside you. And yes, that is OK to say to someone who is blind or visually impaired.

Ultimately, I believe that people who are afraid of accessibility are simply ordinary people who are afraid of doing something wrong, afraid of hurting someone’s feelings, and afraid of letting people down.

Fortunately, ignorance of accessibility is a correctable condition.

Accessibility is NOT Difficult

Good news everyone!

I recognize this idea may be totally contrary to what you might have experienced in the past. There was a time when accessibility really was much more difficult. However, things have changed for the better.

Modern technology can be leveraged to help us communicate more effectively with each other and without requiring teams of translators and specialists.

I have found that accessibility in higher education is often not so difficult to deliver, with proper training and tools.

Best of all, it can bring faculty great relief (and even joy) when they learn how to create and deliver accessible content. They end up teaching better, and we find higher success rates for ALL students.

Typically, ensuring accessibility is really just adding a new awareness to your process. The first step is being aware and mindful of the fact that you have the power to make the change.

Your decisions and actions as an instructor also need to be supported by your institution. With proper support in terms of time, tools, and training, accessibility becomes a solvable problem.

Accessibility is NOT Ugly

Of course, it is certainly possible to create an ugly and plain version of anything. But accessibility doesn’t have to be like that.

One reason this idea continues to come up is because of the abundance of inaccessible, yet visually attractive, information on the Internet.

Many times faculty will include digital content as part of their online course because it offers a means of “spicing up” their course, or making the content more engaging and approachable.

Oftentimes viewed as digital shortcuts for engagement, these technologies are focused around a specific aspect of digital communications, typically without accessibility in mind. Worse, there is often little proof these techniques actually work to increase student engagement.

These digital shortcuts are not necessary when faculty are properly supported in creating and delivering their courses.

Learning to use your tools to create accessible content means you can comfortably add whatever elements you know are going to enhance the learning experience. You don’t have to guess or worry about a student with a disability showing up. That’s not ugly, that’s beautiful!

The Only Thing to Fear is Telling Your Professor You’re Deaf

While I started out addressing the faculty perspective in this post, I realize there is another side of the issue to discuss- the fear of being a student with a disability in the midst of a culture of fear and avoidance.

Being on the receiving end of ignorance can feel like intolerance.

This issue deserves its own post, but in the meantime, consider how difficult it must be to be a student with a disability. Everything about your day is harder and takes longer than it does for others. Education might be your best if not only hope of rising out of poverty.

Do you really want to add yet another obstacle to their path? Do you really need to use that inaccessible content?

Of course not! I know you’re better than that, why else would you have read this far?

Bigger than You Alone

I find that once people have an understanding of digital accessibility, their next stumbling block is simply doing the work. While the processes may not be terribly difficult, the amount of work needing to be done creates a new problem.

In these cases the fear of accessibility is more likely the fear of an insurmountable workload. It is not fair to portray a lack of accessibility as fear of accessibility or lack of concern for students with disabilities when there is more work than can humanly be done.

Most of the faculty I know love to help students, and we need to empower them instead of shaming them.

Let’s try using the motivating power of fear to create a deeper understanding of what is needed for accessibility, and finding the support needed to make it less of a burden. I know faculty who have thrown away content they spent years working on because of the workload in addressing the accessibility challenges. This is tragic, and unnecessary.

Recommendations and Resources

Following are some resources and advice for increasing your ability and knowledge of accessibility.

But first, take a moment and recognize that you are a special individual if you read this far. Lots of people won’t. Even if you skipped all the preceding content and are searching for the resources, something has motivated you to care enough to find answers- and that is HUGE. Thank you!

I’m happy to tell you that showing up is often the hardest part of this. With the right tools, creating accessible digital content can be surprisingly easy.

What You Can Do Today

I recognize that “Don’t be afraid” isn’t all that helpful, but hopefully the following information is.

Text is Essential

All digital accessibility boils down to digital text at some point. Digital text is the most reliable and economical form of digital information. Digital text is the foundation that accessibility requires.

Here’s why text is so important: there are lots of different technologies and different levels of internet access used by your audience. In order to be CERTAIN the message you are trying to share can be spread through all of the different technologies used by your audience, there will need to be a textual version.

This doesn’t mean you can’t have graphics, audio, and videos/animations, but it does mean there will also need to be a textural version of that content.

Structured Text

The next thing you need after you have digital text is semantic structure.

Don’t freak out at the geekiness of the above statement, it just means you have to use the styles included with your authoring software.

Use the heading styles to create meaningful titles and introduce the major sections of your message.

This will go farther than you might realize in ensuring accessibility for individuals using assistive technologies such as screen readers, and it will help ALL students digest the information better.

Descriptions (more text)

As mentioned above, you can use all of the non-textual content (video, audio, animations, images, charts, graphs, maps, etc.) you want, you just need to include textual descriptions as well.

Depending on the software and media you are working with, there will usually be a process to include a textual description of the content.

Audio files require a text transcript, video/animations require closed captions and narrative descriptions, form fields need labels, and tables need headers.

Interactions

The interactivity of digital content provides capabilities that require much further discussion, but here is a simple guideline: If the only way to accomplish an interaction is with a mouse, there is an accessibility problem.

Learn how to use the keyboard to interact with your content. If you can’t interact via the keyboard, there is an accessibility problem.

Likewise, device-centric solutions to providing content are always questionable, and often dangerous approaches to ensuring accessibility.

Resources for Further Study

While I’m always happy to help you at idwerkz.com, there is much you can do on your own. Here are some resources you can turn to for more information on accessibility:

World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative: (w3.org/WAI/)
Literally the source of all web standards, and home of the legendary Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Don’t know what any of that is about? Visit this site and prepare to learn- lots.

WebAIM: (webaim.org)
The fine folks at WebAIM have been solving the world’s accessibility problems and sharing what they learn since 1999. They provide the WAVE toolbar, free helpful tutorials, and a listserv that is full of helpful and knowledgeable people who can be very helpful.

WebAXE: (webaxe.org)
Created and maintained by Dennis Lembree, creator of EasyChirp, an accessible Twitter client. This blog (and once podcast) has been a wealth of news and information about accessibility and the accessibility community since 2005.

Access Technologists Higher Education Network (ATHEN): (athenpro.org)
Some of the world’s most renowned and knowledgeable accessibility experts make up the ranks of ATHEN. Uncompromised, unapologetic, and unrivaled in addressing accessibility issues that affect students with disabilities in higher education.

CCCAccessibility Center: (cccaccessibility.org)
The California Community College system has been addressing accessibility issues in higher education for over four decades. They share training information, technology reviews, policy and planning resources, and more.

Caption Key: (captioningkey.org)
The Described and Captioned Media Program provides the definitive best practices for captioning and describing digital media. Funded by the US Department of Education and the National Association of the Deaf, their mission is to provide equal access to communication and learning through described and captioned educational media.