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Getting un-stuck on the road to digital accessibility
9/20/2019 10:33:09 AM
By: Zoua Vang, Communications Specialist, Olmstead Implementation Office
It is clear that digital accessibility is a good thing and everyone should be doing it. What is not clear is what to do when you or your organization hits a rough patch and gets stuck on the road to digital accessibility.
Perhaps you are just starting out and don’t know where to begin. Or maybe you and your co-workers were trained on how to make documents accessible but that was a few years ago and everyone has become a little rusty. Or maybe you feel your organization has this digital accessibility thing figured out, but with new technologies coming online all the time, how do you know what you don’t know?
In this article we talk to three digital accessibility coordinators who shared some tips and tricks for helping you and your organization get back on the road to digital accessibility:
Whether you are just starting or have been on the journey for years, it is important to be familiar with the Digital Accessibility Maturity Model (DAMM) and refer to it often. This tool helps make things less overwhelming as it allows you to see what the road ahead looks like, to be able to identify beginning and end points, and locate where you are on the road so that if you get stuck it won’t be for too long because you’re tracking progress.
Becky Bernauer’s digital accessibility journey started soon after Minnesota’s Accessibility Standards Law took effect in September 2010.
“I felt responsible. I was working on websites at the time and knew our PDFs weren't accessible,” said Bernauer. “No one knew where to begin back in those days. Someone had to get on top of it. I just started digging in and sharing my knowledge.”
Since those early days, the State of Minnesota’s Office of Accessibility has created useful step by step tools to assist with implementation of digital accessibility. A good start is to visit their free Training Modules which provide step by step instructions on how to make documents accessible. The Office of Accessibility also provides an Implementation Toolkit that details strategies for how organizations can implement accessibility.
State employees should check with their training coordinator on how to access those modules in Enterprise Learning Management (ELM).
Let’s be honest, learning something new that requires you to rewire your brain can be exciting but also overwhelming.
“When you are starting out, there’s a knowledge gap, so the goal is to keep everyone from being overwhelmed yet still excited. When starting out we need to build momentum and keep the team moving,” said Becky Bernauer.
One thing they did at MDH that helped staff more quickly adopt digitally accessibility, was to create and implement templates that had accessibility features already embedded. Beyond templates, it’s getting serious about standards.
Bernauer says “It has to start with ‘Nothing goes out to the public unless it is done right.’ The more pushback there is and the more they are forced to redo the work, the better they get and the less frustrated they become.”
It is a fine balance of holding staff accountable and knowing when to provide them with more support.
“One of best things MNIT did was to find a bunch of people in state government with accessibility questions and put them all in a room so they could support each other and work toward solutions,” recalls Bernauer.
Kim Wee says at MDE, it was critical for them to cultivate a trusting and supportive group.
“When getting started it is important to have people trust others in the room. I can’t stress this enough” said Wee. “It’s really hard for people to work through the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis and score the categories honestly if they feel they can’t be honest and forthright.”
Feeling safe to explore and learn is one thing, but strong leadership is just as critical at the foundational stage. Whether an organization has thousands or just a few employees, every person interviewed agreed that for an organization to become digitally accessible, leadership is imperative in making this organizational shift happen. Strong leadership means work flow processes can be revamped and new procedures instituted to ensure digital accessibility is prioritized.
At the Minnesota Commission of the Deaf, Deafblind and Hard of Hearing (MNCDHH) there is support from all staff and office protocols are clear.
“All of MNCDHH’s digital content goes through me but I do not make my colleagues’ documents accessible,” said Anne Sittner Anderson. “My colleagues know that they need to make their documents accessible before they send them to me. If they accidently forget, it is caught when I check the document, and I return it to them. We believe in the ‘teach a man to fish’ theory.”
So you and people at your organization have attended trainings on how to make documents accessible and there may even be established protocols for digital accessibility, but is that enough?
Having established procedures for digital accessibility is a great start but that shouldn’t be where it stops. It can’t be. Even at places like MNCDHH where they have been leaders in digital accessibility, they say there is always more to do.
“My amazing colleagues are all staunch advocates for accessibility and MNCDHH was the lead agency to get the digital accessibility and usability law passed with our partners in 2009,” said Sittner Anderson. “However, I am always modifying my approach as I learn new accessibility features or methods.”
Digital accessibility veterans say individuals or organizations that are more advanced acknowledge that while they are doing the best they can right now, they know that technology is always changing and they must continue to learn and evolve so their products remain accessible and usable. The goal is to build a mindset that continual improvement in digital accessibility should be a source of pride, not frustration.
When you feel stuck or directionless, digital accessibility veterans say go back the basics! Revisit the DAMM. Look at where you started, see how far you’ve come and celebrate those successes. Next, look at where you want to go and start taking steps to get you there.
At MDE, they rely on knowledgeable and well trained staff to help infuse change and excitement into their work.
“We have content managers for each of the program areas,” said Kim Wee. “The content managers at the Department of Education have had advanced training in accessibility. This has been extremely helpful with making sure the content that is being posted to our internal and external websites is accessible.”
MDH has similar approach. There, they use quality control staff at the division level and the division staff are routinely trained. Whether it is at MNCDHH, where there are only six employees, or at larger organization like the Minnesota Departments of Education and Health, they say it all comes down to having policies and a structure to support the work. Policies set a clear direction on where everyone needs to be and a structure ensures there will be resources to support the work.
From time to time, experts notice that staff may become complacent about making their work digitally accessible because over time, it is viewed as another “to do” and people forget why they are doing it in the first place.
“The key to making this work sustainable is making others passionate about it,” said Bernauer. “We have to always help people reconnect with why this work matters. We aren’t just doing it because it’s the law, we are doing it because it is the right thing to do.”
There is one thing that our digital accessibility veterans want you to know. Where you or your organization is on the digital accessibility road doesn’t matter, what matters is that you are traveling in a direction that will get you to a better place. A few things to consider having in place to ensure momentum and forward movement are:
Would you like to learn more about the accessibility work being done by Minnesota IT Services and the State of Minnesota? Once a month we will bring you more tips, articles, and ways to learn more about digital accessibility.
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