37th Annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference Has Concluded

Best Practices for Enterprise Document Accessibility

Date & Time

Tuesday, March 15, 2022 - 2:20 PM PST

Location

Platinum 6 (LIVESTREAM)

Description

Millions to Billions of documents are created daily and monthly. Many are housed on websites, and many exist in business enterprises. Documents communicate critical information that must be inclusive. As organizations plan to implement accessibility, this should not be a retrofit but a way to implement accessibility as a culture from authoring to publishing. Documents for staff and clients as well as websites should be in scope. Organizations generate office documents, publications, and forms in the enterprise and other channels like a website and for public consumption. Document management can typically be upwards of 42% of the cost of an enterprise. Retrofitting can cost ten times the cost of simply making a document inclusive. Document types can be characterized as single documents for all to consume, like a guide or transactional. Personal documents like invoices, statements, or letters are created when services are rendered, sometimes with personal and confidential information. These documents are systematically generated. We will discuss implementing a culture of inclusion and the most efficient method of implementing accessibility. This includes training and awareness, tools for common office authoring products such as MS Office, templates, considerations for centers of excellence, systematically generated documents for digital accessibility, and alternate formats. Training – implementing a culture of inclusion, ensuring awareness of document accessibility, making sure your front-line customer service understands how to handle accommodation requests. This also includes a methodology to train, reinforce and provide ongoing reinforcement. Human Resources – creating content in the enterprise accessible to all, including outsourced payroll and other critical employee interfaces. Creating a Center of Excellence – organizations need to combine compliance, IT accessibility, expertise, and customer experience to create. Ideally, this should include top-down C-Suite organizational policies for accessibility focus. Budgeting for Accessibility – Consider budgeting for operational and capital spending in your organization's budgets. Procurement – working with organizations that provide accessible content and adding this into all procurement processes. Sales, Product – ensuring products and content are fully accessible to allow the broadest reach for both accessibility and to markets such as the US GOV that require minimum digital or accommodation requirements. Office Documents – Using tools, stylesheets, templates, and policies at the IT level can ensure compliance and a lower cost to accessibility. We'll discuss tools. Websites have been well discussed, but the content on a website, such as forms, PDFs, and documents, should be made accessible, including videos. Content must be checked on a scheduled basis with crawlers and verification tools. Finding Documents – Utilize tools to find inaccessible documents and content to avoid drive-by lawsuits and ensure that all content meets your guidelines. Marketing – make the community aware of your efforts. Lifelong clients that need accommodations or accessible digital services should be marketed. Client Correspondence – There are regulated requirements for delivering accessible documents for many business verticals. Client correspondence can include millions of invoices, statements, letters, and specific correspondence mailed or electronically delivered. This area has been critical to those with a disability during Covid times. We'll look at these functional areas and discuss if Centers of Excellence should be part of the solution, who to partner with, and who can help provide a plan to tackle these issues.

Audience

Information & Communications Technology
Government
Healthcare & Rehabilitation
Finance & Banking
Employment & Human Resources

Audience Level

Beginning

Session Summary (Abstract)

Accessibility is a requirement, and it is here to stay. Document accessibility can be challenging. How do you create a culture of inclusion? What tools, culture, or training is required? We will discuss best practices and strategies that can be implemented to support enterprise document accessibility.

Session Type

General Track

Topics