Establishing an Accessibility Committee

Understanding the diversity of skills and knowledge in the company’s workforce, you decide that it will be more effective if each department managed their own digital accessibility efforts. You decide to create an accessibility committee, made up of senior or influential people from each of the major groups in the company. Your goal is to take a proactive approach to accessibility, addressing issues before they become complaints, rather than a reactive approach, where issues are addressed only when a complaint has been received.

By implementing a proactive approach, you are aiming to address potential barriers before they result in lost customers. While the company did receive a complaint, you understand that many people who encounter accessibility barriers do not complain. They just leave, perhaps going to the competition. You are convinced that if they come to your website and have a pleasant, accessible experience, they will likely return and make additional purchases.

You plan to have the accessibility committee initially meet several times over a two month period, to get accessibility efforts underway, then reduce the frequency of meetings to once per quarter, to receive updates from each group and discuss any new issues that arise.

You debate whether you are the best person to take on the Accessibility Champion role. While you are becoming more familiar with digital accessibility, and you find it very interesting, you are not sure if you have the technical knowledge to fully understand the possibilities or options for developing and implementing digital accessibility. For now, you take on the role yourself, but leave the option open to assign the role to another member of the accessibility committee once it has been established, or even look outside the company for a person with the right balance of technical background and disability/accessibility knowledge to understand the technologies involved.

You decide to approach the CEO, who originally asked you to investigate the complaint, and ask her if she would be a member of the committee. She agrees, but suggests that after initially establishing the committee, she will pass that role to the senior VP. You also approach the director of retail sales, who oversees the retail managers and visits retail stores regularly. You also ask the IT manager to participate, as well as one of the senior web developers who reports to him and who has some web accessibility experience.