Doing Accessibility Right the First
Time –
or Maybe the Second
Sarah Anderson and Donna Dralus,
Grinnell College
@grinnola
#UAD3
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Upgrade from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7
Complete redesign
Content strategy: flatten
Audience: target prospective students
Responsive
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Leadership changes
Department growth & turnover
No internal Drupal developers
No intranet
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Communications Staff
Information Technology Services Staff
Accessibility and Disability Services Staff
Accessibility Committee
Accessibility Task Force
Vocal Students and Parents
Vocal Alumni
Tom Harkin
Chapter 1
• Design firm and development firm
separate, but provided “joint proposal”
• Accessibility was written into the
contract, but not defined
– “The website will also follow all latest best
practices for accessibility by people of all abilities
and disabilities, while addressing the information
needs of the varied audiences that use the
College’s website.”
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Design
Develop
Audit
Fix
Launch
Chapter 2: The Launch
©Warner Bros.
• Dozens of errors in template
• Low contrast between key colors
– All text on the site too small and too low contrast
– Lack of contrast in masthead image and navigation
• Forms were a mess
• Autoplay carousels on every page
• “Drawers”
• Finger pointing
– Dev partner blamed design partner
– Design partner blamed dev partner
– Both blamed us (“You approved it…”)
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Contract wasn’t specific enough to help
Fixing it would be $$$
Campus was outraged
Final result didn’t meet needs or reflect the
brand
Chapter 3: Starting Over
• Fortunately (?!?) accessibility wasn’t the
site’s biggest problem, but it was the one
mandated by law.
• Expense to fix ≈ expense to start over
• Coincided with rebranding effort
Chapter 4: Learning from Our
MIstakes
• Admitted we needed help
• New dev partner didn’t have expertise
• RFP to choose accessibility partner
New Process
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Design
Audit
Build
Audit
Fix
Audit
And repeat…
Chapter 5: Another Launch
Chapter 6: Defending the Castle
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SiteImprove for weekly reports
Certification for editors prior to training
Site-specific training prior to access
Review process prior to publishing
Creating assistive technology department
When they come with pitchforks…
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Don’t be defensive
Ask for help to fix
Tie efforts to core values
Personalize the issue
– Current students
– Alumni
Choose Your Sidekicks Wisely
Vet your potential partners carefully
(dev, design, etc.)
– Ask specific questions
– Look at portfolios, do simple tests
– Don’t use a print team to design a website
Contracts
• Build accessibility standards into
contracts
– Be specific
– Align to 508, WCAG 2.0 standards (A, AA, AAA)
Choosing an Accessibility Partner
• Manual and automated testing
• Universal design/UX expertise, not just
standards compliance
• Good project management, good
communication
• Useful Reports
– Ask for samples
– Design and code suggestions
• Involve parties from across campus to ask
the right questions
Resources
• If you don’t have internal expertise, find
it
• Automated tools aren’t everything, but
they’re a place to start
• Provide heuristics/checklists for editors
Maintenance
• Automated tools
• Content editor training
• Content approval process
Epilogue
• Digital accessibility policy
• Accessibility of assets (PDFs, documents,)
• Digital accessibility beyond the website
Process
Build accessibility into every phase of the
project
– Wireframe
– Design
– Build
– Audit/Maintain