Incorporate accessibility into your development plans with rapid, agile accessibility consultancy throughout the build phase
Why do it?
Accessibility should not be an afterthought. It should be given as much care and attention as the underlying structure of the website and the design of the pages.
Building an accessible digital service is increasingly a requirement (especially for those in the public sector) but it should also be a strategic priority. As well as this obligation to meet the needs of all users, disabled users are a key market not to be forgotten, with an estimated £80bn in disposable income.
By considering accessibility early in the development process, you will save time and money in the long run and ensure your digital service works for all your users from the word go.
How we do it
First, we work with your development team to understand their current understanding of accessibility best practice. If necessary, we will conduct some accessibility training with the team to bring them up to speed with the latest accessibility guidelines and how to build accessible websites.
We will then integrate into your existing working approach. Whether using Agile or Waterfall methodologies, we will become a part of your team, and conduct regular accessibility reviews of the website as it develops.
In each review, we will assess the new designs and templates against the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and conduct manual testing with assistive technologies, such as screen readers, screen magnifiers and speech recognition software (just as we would when conducting a full accessibility audit).
Issues will be fed back to the team in a way that works for them, be that emails or via their ticket management system.
On completion of the build, we would run a formal accessibility audit and generate an accessibility statement to be published on the website, detailing the compliance level achieved.