Content Recap

Unit 1 Summary

This unit is aimed at getting you familiar with the materials and how to make the most of this learning experience.

Unit 2 Summary

In this unit, you learned the following points about understanding accessibility:

• When a business addresses digital accessibility, it actually saves money and doing so is not a non-recoverable cost to the business.
• There is a strong potential for a significant increase in customers for businesses that address digital accessibility.
• Digital accessibility should not be an afterthought but rather it needs to be part of the business strategy and the daily operations of the business.
• Addressing accessibility is a quality attribute of business and improves its profile.

Unit 3 Summary

In this unit, you learned these aspects about establishing a digital accessibility committee:

• Disability sensitivity training, a good understanding of accessibility and standards such as WCAG, and accessibility barriers are all key knowledge areas required in different company roles.
• Accessibility committee members should be chosen strategically and should represent a good cross-section of the business.

Unit 4 Summary

In this unit, you learned the following about creating a digital accessibility culture:

• Accessibility auditing is an important step. Choosing a reputable service involves careful consideration focusing on key reputability factors.
• Two approaches to accessible websites are retrofitting and starting over. The correct approach for your situation will need to consider several factors including outsourcing the work to external vendors.
• Building a company-wide strategy about accessibility includes building awareness, hiring people with disabilities, focused presentations, and training.
• Web development accessibility guidelines focus on user interaction with a website whereas web content accessibility guidelines focus more on standards compliance. Both are important.
• Several approaches should be used to monitor adherence to accessibility guidelines including unbiased quality assurance reviews and the use of automated tools.
• Implementing accessibility will include managing change. Kotter’s Eight-Step Model for Leading Change and Lewin’s Three-Step Model are two common models that can help when planning and facilitating the implementation.
• Resistance by staff may be the most challenging element in implementing change and overcoming the five main reasons people resist change needs to be part of your change management strategy.

Unit 5 Summary

In this unit, you learned the following about procurement and accessibility policy:

• To be successful, an effective web accessibility policy should be rooted within the business culture following the WebAIM eight-step process.
• A web accessibility policy should include procurement practices for both IT and non-IT related goods and services.
• Vendors should be able to verify and validate the accessibility compliance of their products and services.

Unit 6 Summary

In this unit, you learned the following points about hiring accessibility staff:

• Companies are missing out on a significant talent pool of highly educated and skilled workers when they exclude people with disabilities in their hiring practices.
• Few formal technical training programs focus on developing accessible web content thus creating self-taught specialists who teach themselves independently. These specialists will have some common knowledge as well as informal personal skill sets related to accessible content.