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Accessibility Enhancement

Why?

Most Internet users are sufficiently healthy technically equipped to surf the web and use its full power. But not all of them are so lucky — the National Organization on Disability says that up to 30% of worldwide web users in 2006 had a physical limitation such as visual or motor impairments. Moreover, despite the fact that powerful computers are now everywhere, technical limitations are significant and increasing as more and more users surf the web via mobiles or even TVs. Despite the limitations, these people are prospective customers — and, with the U.S. and European countries issuing recommendations and even laws about accessibility, they are protected by government.

The Solution

To make an application sufficiently accessible, its current state should be evaluated first. The U.S. and EU governments have issued a series of standard documents that describe accessibility of an application and the best choices for accessibility enhancement. These documents — called voluntary product accessibility templates, or VPAT — describe every aspect of the application and the accessibility status of these aspects.

This initial VPAT indicates whether the application needs accessibility enhancements or not. Even if everything is okay and improvements are not necessary, the VPAT document will be proof that the application is accessible. But in most cases, there are lots of ways to apply enhancements, so the initial VPAT will be the list of issues to resolve. Before any recommendations to resolve these issues are given, priorities should be identified — which users with disabilities should be provided with maximum capabilities and which can be given a limited number of features. Some improvements can be quite expensive — an ideal accessibility enhancement process can be too expensive for some businesses — so it's better to limit enhancements to a reasonable number.

Recommendations can be presented in a different ways — from text descriptions for how to fix every problem to updated user interface specifications in the form of wireframes that define page content and layouts, use cases that define user interactions and their sequence, and software requirement specifications that define business rules — and, of course, the VPAT document for enhanced applications.

Want to know the details about how this is done? Learn more about the Accessibility Enhancement process.

Results

In the end of the Accessibility Enhancement process, there is a series of documents produced and delivered to the client:

• Initial VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template). A standard text document that defines every accessibility aspect of the application in its initial state.
• Accessibility Issues List. A text document that describes accessibility issues in detail.
• Accessibility Recommendations List. A text document that describes in detail how to resolve accessibility issues.
• Updated Wireframes. A set of graphic documents that describe page layouts.
• Updated Use Cases. A set of text documents that describe page navigation and interactions.
• Updated Software Requirement Specification. A text document that describes business rules and functionality in detail.
• Updated VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template). A standard text document that defines every accessibility aspect of the application in its enhanced state.

The set of deliverables may be customized, depending on client needs, but it should contain at least the Accessibility Evaluation Report and Accessibility Issues List.

Have a question? Feel free to contact us.

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