1. Where is Your Organization on the Accessibility Maturity Scale
Ajay Sohal
Software Testing Engineer
QA Infotech

2. Abstract
Countless technological organizations are extensively working in the software arena to build innovative products for the end users. Primarily, it all begins by having a well-defined process and approach of developing a product which can bring advantage in the end.
There is always a positive thought which is linked with developing a software product with the intention that a maximum number of customers can obtain same product and gain value. Out of these users, there is a segment of those individuals who require special products. Of course, these users cannot be ignored. It requires an intense study to understand their demands and usage. As a matter of fact, organizations dealing with websites and mobile apps are willing to include accessibility as an important part of their software development life-cycle. But there is always a question to figure out the technique to reach a maturity level.

3. Why Accessibility? Awareness is higher due to the number of lawsuits
Globally there is a significant increase in implementation of regulations, standards and policies for accessibility
Lack of attention to accessibility can impact sales and revenue
Expensive to retrofit accessibility
Products are constantly evolving
Maturing population represents a strong demographic for revenue opportunity
People are staying in the workforce longer
Retired population is tech savvy

4. Business Challenges
Technology keeps changing which requires new accessibility techniques
Businesses are constantly changing due to demands and need to do more with less
Lack of awareness of accessibility and standards leads to poor or incomplete implementation
No clear policies or direction on what you need to achieve for accessibility
No one is responsible or accountable
Processes and roles are not clearly defined
Third-party content and tools are not accessible Lack of accessibility skills and knowledge
Accessibility is considered an afterthought

5. What is Maturity?
Processes that are well-defined, repeatable, measured, analyzed, improved and effective
Business process improvement models help to solve the maturity problem by:
◦Defining a set of practices
◦Providing a general framework for improving them

6. Immature vs. Mature Organization

7. Capability Maturity Model (CMM)
Method to evaluate and measure the maturity of processes
Developed to help organizations identify
Where they are
Where they want to be
What factors need to be overcome
To ensure that they get there
◦Competently
◦Confidently

8. CMM Levels

9. Why Apply CMM to Accessibility?
To define and apply a proven process
Framework to continually improve and refine the process
Reduces costs and improves quality
Greater productivity, higher quality, and less re-work
Reduced risk
Increased customer satisfaction

10. What is the Accessibility Maturity Model?
Helps organizations produce products that are usable and accessible for all
Provides model for integrating into organization’s processes so that it is part of organization’s DNA
Gets at the source of the problem
Are you using proven industry practices?
Does the staff have the resources needed to execute the process?
Is the organization providing effective support?
About improving operations, employee skills and measuring results

11. Getting Started
Integrating accessibility and forming an accessibility program needs to be broken down into manageable steps to implement across the organization
May be different for different organizations based on structure and type of business
Top-down
Bottom-up
Middle-out
Whichever method, the steps are the same, just in a different order

12. Top-Down Management or legal makes the decision
Starts with business processes and finishes with implementation
Need to define responsibilities, policies, standards, governance, processes and procedures
Advantages:
Clear policy statement from executives
Training begins to build common understanding
Processes and documentation gives comprehensive perspective
Challenges:
Process can take a long time to integrate
Many activities with little return

13. Bottom-Up Advantages: Challenges:
Usually starts because someone is passionate about accessibility
Starts with implementation and finishes with business processes
Accessibility efforts are made on a project-by-project basis
Applying lessons learned and building processes & policies
Work to get leadership support
Advantages:
Efforts need a single manager, a process and team to get started
Passionate champion leads the efforts
Efforts are focused
Learning and process improvements happen on the job
Challenges:
Processes are contained with project so no big impact on company as a whole
Spread virally but can also die with change in staffing

14. Middle-Out Executive sponsor leads efforts in particular division
Wider focus than bottom-up
Some processes and procedures are standardized
Usually some measurement or reporting
Advantages:
Real work is being done to improve processes
Learning by doing
More support than bottom-up
Challenges:
Organization is not looking at processes fully from end-to-end
Accessibility may not continue to be a priority with competing organizational priorities

15. Assessing Maturity Benchmark where you are against key process areas
Perform gap analysis between your existing processes and the key components needed for accessibility
Requires reviewing documentation (policies, processes, guidelines)
Interviewing staff to see how it is implemented into day-to-day practices
Results will provide guidance on how to move forward and to build on areas where you have some level of maturity
Important to continually measure results to show ROI and to know the impact of efforts

16. How to Quickly Assess your Accessibility Maturity
Evaluate against 5 key capability areas
Accessibility policy
Accessibility governance
Accessibility integration
Training
Documentation and reporting
Score each from 0 – 3 with maximum score of 15

22. How Mature is Your Accessibility Program?

23. QA InfoTech’s step towards Accessibility Maturity

25. Accessibilitometer
Accessibilitometer is a tool which defines the accessibility compliant score of any application (Desktop/Web) based on the accessibility checks that have been performed on different available features.

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27. Sneak peek to Accessibilitometer

28. Continued…

29. Thank You!!!