{"id":17881,"date":"2022-06-10T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-10T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aquent.com\/?p=17881"},"modified":"2022-06-10T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T09:00:00","slug":"how-to-scale-digital-accessibility-cater-for-diverse-audiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www-beta.aquent.io\/en-nl\/blog\/how-to-scale-digital-accessibility-cater-for-diverse-audiences","title":{"rendered":"How to Scale Digital Accessibility & Cater for Diverse Audiences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every day at Telstra<\/a>, we hear of the need to make our digital products and services more accessible for people with a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive ability. In fact, it’s a no-brainer. With more than one in five Australians living with some form of disability, it’s clearly incumbent on the country’s leading telecoms company to cater to this market. It also makes total business sense. <\/span>According to the Centre for Inclusive Design<\/span><\/a>, the 4 million Australians who are unable to access products and services because of poor design possess more than $40 billion in buying power.<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, the striking thing about the demands that people with disabilities make on companies is that there aren’t more of them. While we have a moral responsibility to support these customers (not to mention a great business opportunity), we still often fall short. It’s even reflected in that aspiration, to make our services “more accessible<\/a>”. Is that really how far we’re going to aim – to make things a little bit better for our customers?<\/span><\/p>\n

Shouldn’t we actually be aiming to make <\/span>all<\/span><\/i> our products accessible for <\/span>all<\/span><\/i> people? Where do you draw the line for the minimum level that’s required for something to be ‘usable’ for everyone? Not appealing, or engaging, or easy to use – just usable.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Accessibility is all about making things accessible to all people, whether they have a disability or not. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s about removing barriers for communication and interaction. It’s someone being able to read a webpage when they can’t see it. Someone being able to read your terms and conditions when they can’t understand the language. Someone being able to hear what’s being said on your video when they can’t actually hear.<\/span><\/p>\n

The cost imperative<\/h2>\n

According to a study by <\/span>Forrester Research<\/span><\/a>, incorporating accessibility features into a digital tool at the design and architecture stage can save an organisation literally millions of dollars. The later in the process that you introduce accessibility, the more it will cost to fix it – rising to 30 times the original cost if fixes are implemented post-release.<\/span><\/p>\n

This staggering finding, which presents a compelling business case for incorporating accessibility at the earliest stage in development of a new app or website, was confirmed in one of the most notable court cases on accessibility in Australia: <\/span>Maguire vs Sydney Olympic Games (2000)<\/span><\/a>. In this case, in which a customer who was blind sued the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games for distress inflicted by their inaccessible website, the court heard that it would cost $2.2 million to rectify the website’s faults – and take 368 days to implement the fixes required.<\/span><\/p>\n

In its judgement, Inquiry Commissioner William Carter QC awarded Bruce Maguire $20,000 in compensation for the “considerable feelings of hurt, humiliation and rejection<\/em>” caused by his repeated inability to access the Olympics website, compounded by the “dismissive” response of the Olympics Committee – which included a suggestion that he enlists the help of a sighted person! The Human Rights & Equal Opportunities Commission<\/a>’s ruling established an ethical imperative for all Australian governments to make their websites accessible – and the Commonwealth Government subsequently ruled that all government websites should meet the World Wide Web Consortium<\/a>’s WCAG guidelines<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

“One cannot overstate the consequential effect upon him of his having to cope with the persistent need to counter what he saw as a negative, unhelpful and dismissive attitude on the part of an organisation charged with the presentation of the most notable sporting event in the history of this country.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

– <\/span><\/i>William Carter QC, Inquiry Commissioner, Human Rights & Equal Opportunities Commission, November 2000<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Accessible from the get-go<\/h2>\n

Today at Telstra, we have a streamlined process for ensuring that accessibility is practised – and wherever possible implemented – at every stage in the lifecycle of a new digital product or service. This requirement is no longer just a best endeavour, but is mandated in 27 priority actions that are outlined in our <\/span>7th Accessibility Action Plan<\/span><\/a>, and continually measured to improve customer experiences, create a more inclusive workplace, and develop better technologies for users with a disability.<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to mainstream accessibility considerations and perspectives at different stages in the lifecycle of a new product or piece of software, we recommend a number of critical practices which include:<\/span><\/p>\n

In sprint<\/span><\/h3>\n