Starting and keeping up accessibility in an organisation

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Accessibility is a good business practice and soon required by law, as mentioned in a previous blog post. The same blog post also explains how to get started with accessibility as an individual, but how do you handle accessibility for an organisation? Let us show you what we at IMG Play have done for accessibility at KTH and how you can apply it to your own organisation!

Educate employees and involve stakeholders

Accessibility requires the cooperation and support of your employees and your stakeholders, so the first step is to inform and educate them. IMG Play has mainly been involved in educating employees, but involving stakeholders is too important to leave out of this blog post. Your stakeholders are probably mostly interested in the business case of accessibility for your organisation. To create one, consider as many areas as possible, for example that accessibility will do the following:

  • Increase general usability: designing for accessibility often leads to unintended, but welcomed, improvements for all users, see the Curb cut effect (wikipedia.org).
  • Reach a large, ignored user base: 15% of the world’s population are disabled, and the number is growing as we live longer (World Report on Disability (who.int).
  • Minimise legal risk. As mentioned earlier, there are legal requirements for accessibility already and more specific laws will soon come into effect.
  • Reduce the costs of late adaptation, both in time and money. If accessibility is an afterthought you’ll have to implement it around inaccessible features, which is not cost-effective.

Day-to-day accessibility tasks

Your employees will be more interested in what they actually have to do in their day-to-day work, so they will require training. We have been heavily involved in this at KTH, as we helped create their online, self-study course on digital accessibility. The self-study course are split into the following parts:
  • Information about why accessibility is important, including several recorded interviews with disabled students and employees at KTH.
  • How to create accessible text documents and to write accessible text. Covers both the laws and general recommendations on how it should be done.
  • How to handle visual communication, such as images, graphs and colour.
  • The required steps to make video and audio accessible and how to do it efficiently. 

Set goals

When establishing the accessibility goals for your organisation, it’s essential to specify what conformance levels you aim to meet of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These levels provide clear benchmarks for progress and ensure consistency across all departments. You should also specify any other standards your organisation will be using, for example for plain language.

However, accessibility is measured by how well your users can use your product, not by how well it conforms to WCAG. Alfred Korzybski famously said “the map is not the territory”, and here we will say that the checklist is not the experience of using your product. They are, of course, related and the WCAG checklist is very useful, but you need broader goals than just WCAG compliance. These accessibility goals are best formulated with the help of accessibility experts, so we can help you! Contact-us-länk

Create templates and standards

Simplify for those creating content, so the easiest path is to create accessible material. A tried and tested way to do this is to create accessible templates for the most common content, for each system. Have the templates be useful and the default choice. For example, we created an accessible template for KTH’s course platform, Canvas, and an “accessibility checklist”. We have also helped create a standard web layout for parts of KTH’s intranet.

Keep up to date

As with most things, you can never fully “complete” accessibility simply because the world is always changing. Your organisation need a process to, for example, keep up to date on new:

  • legislation
  • standards
  • assistive technology.

With robust reviewing practices this should be easy to keep up to date. At KTH, we have customised their yearly review of their web pages to better fit with specific teams, and also created a way to handle internal feedback on the same web pages.

Ask for feedback from users

No matter how much you study and work with creating accessible products, you will always know less than those who have to use said products daily. Remember to involve people with relevant and different disabilities. Ask for their input and expertise, early and as often as required. 

Contact us for more information and further help with acessability in your organisation.

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How IMG Play helped KTH with digital accessibility, and what you can learn from it

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To make a service or content accessible is to ensure that everyone can access and use said service or content, no matter their disability. While it is generally a good business practice to allow your customers to use your service, it will also be required by law in Sweden for digital products and services by 2025 (Tillgänglighetsdirektivet (regeringen.se)

Here we will try to make digital accessibility seem less difficult and arcane for beginners. To start with, we’ll show you some examples of how IMG Play supports digital accessibility at KTH. Then, we will give you tips and recommendations on how to get started on your own.

IMG Plays accessibility support at KTH

For governmental agencies in Sweden, digital accessibility is already required by law (specifically the DOS law). That is why IMG Play has been working with KTH to improve their digital accessibility. We have supported KTH to create and maintain the following:

  • Educational material for staff. For example:

    • A self-study course detailing how to create accessible digital documents.
    • Guides to creating accessible videos and how to caption them.
    • Tips on how to get started, the so-called “low-hanging fruit”.
  • Templates and standards for the intranet pages governed by the e-learning team.
  • A checklist of basic digital accessibility, for teachers to use when creating courses.
  • Ongoing support to teachers on how to improve the accessibility of their digital course material.

How you can get started (as an individual)

While accessibility should be prioritised at an organisational level, there are things you can do as an individual to get started. You should start simple and work to incorporate your knowledge as early as possible in future projects. Also, ask for support from your managers, they should have a vested interest in making your product as accessible as possible. There are more details about all of this under the following headings.

Start simple, with the “low-hanging fruit”

Some accessibility problems we call “low-hanging fruits” as they are simple to fix, in that they can be fixed by individuals with minimal training. These “low-hanging fruits” can usually be fixed after a product is completed, although it’s more efficient to make sure they never appear at all.

Some examples of low-hanging fruit:

  • Use the correct heading levels without skipping.
  • Write meaningful link text.
  • Avoid only using colour to convey information.
  • Consider the reading order for screen readers (both in the text and in the code).

For more, we recommend you read the guides created by the Web Accessibility Initiative for designers, writers and developers: Tips for Getting Started (w3.org). 

Incorporate accessibility at the start of future projects

When working with accessibility, you will often use checklists to make sure you meet the criterias. However, this makes it easy to fall into the mindset that accessibility is the last step, that you go through a checklist and fix any problems you find before shipping your product. This is the least efficient way to make your product accessible.

You should consider accessibility in the planning stage, otherwise you might have to redesign portions or all of your product. For example, if you have text with images of data tables in them, then the accessible version is to remove the images and add them as tables. Hopefully your product can render tables properly already, but will it scale properly to mobile phones or with 200% zoom? In the best case scenario this is just hours of wasted time, in the worst case scenario the product will have to be fully redesigned. 

While you as an individual might have limited control over an entire project, you can apply this mindset to your content. For example, you can ask yourself:

 

  • What parts of WCAG are relevant for this project and what level are we trying to reach?
  • Will users be able to navigate with the most common tools? (Mouse, touch-screen, keyboard, keyboard and screen reader).
  • What is the standard way to solve [problem] in an accessible way?
    • Are there any templates you can use?
  • What tools will be used in testing and how often will the product be tested?

Tip! Learn why some solutions are accessible and some are not, it will greatly help you foresee future problems. 

                 common accessibility icons

 

Ask for support from your managers

There is a lot you can do as an individual, but accessibility is easier to achieve when everyone is helping. Ask your managers what can be done to create accessible templates and routines, and how to best spread the workload. Talking about accessibility will also raise awareness of it and will help you find existing solutions from others.

Get in touch with our accessibility expert (Björn)

 

Nurturing Learning Together

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Digital Education Focused on Progress, and Secure Learning Environments.

 

In a longstanding partnership, KTH- Royal Institute of Technology and IMG _Play have forged a alliance focused on enhancing digital learning. This collaboration has been marked by close cooperation between IMG_ Play and esteemed professors at KTH, with a shared goal of providing comprehensive support for digital learning encompassing video, learning management systems (LMS), and accessibility. 

At the heart of this collaboration is KTH’s Department of Digital Learning, serving as the hub where research and proven expertise in digital media and learning converge.

This department plays a pivotal role in developing knowledge and consulting in digital platforms, creation of online courses, and videos to support education and learning. The work between KTH and IMG_Play is a testament to the shared commitment to advancing digital learning methodologies and dive in new platforms.  

Collaboration on OLI Torus 

IMG_Play and KTH have established a significant cooperation within the framework of OLI Torus, a powerful platform that promotes lifelong learning through mission-based education. It extends across multiple courses, where IMG_Play not only creates content but also provides consultation in E-learning and pedagogy.  

The platform’s latest upgrade, Torus v.24, was released to prepare for the fall semester, introducing new features and user-friendly interface updates. 

Example of OLI Torus Courses now and then at KTH: 

  • Democratic Digitalization for Arbetsförmedlingen (The Employment Service): The project aims to enhance the general digital competence of Arbetsförmedlingen’s employees. 
  • Problem Solving in Digital Environments: 1000 students. 
  • Math Physics Courses with RCN KTH: Integrated with Moodle, 330 students in Mathematics and 240 students in Physics. 
  • Open Torus Courses without LMS: Summer Programming 2023 (1300 students) and Introductory Relativity Theory (400 students). 

Note the use of SHA 256 encryption for anonymizing student ID’s during Arbetsförmedlingen’s (The Employment Service) courses. Using SHA in Learning Management Systems (LMS) can enhance security. Hash functions like SHA are valuable for password storage. Instead of storing actual passwords, LMS systems can store their hash values.

New Features in OLI Torus V.24: 

  • Onboarding Tools: Support for guided processes for both students and instructors, facilitating the introduction to courses. 
  • Priority Functionality: Focus on Equity-Centered Courseware Pilot and migration from the Legacy OLI platform. 
  • Support for Evidence-Based Development: Collaboration with KTH and Arbetsförmedlingen (The Employment Service) integrates research and evaluation of digital competence development. 

Stay in the loop:

What is an LMS? A Learning Management System (LMS) is a digital platform for administering, creating, and distributing learning and training within an organization. It serves as a tool for digital learning, allowing companies to design and deliver courses for employee development and onboarding.

Why OLI Torus?  This revolutionary initiative builds upon the trailblazing accomplishments of CMU’s Open Learning Initiative, ushering in a new era of educational technology. Noteworthy features include powerful tools for publishing courseware, offering functionalities like versioning, seamless product management, and much more. 

Torus: Smarter learning, better results! Torus is all about smart learning. It uses science to shape course design, gathers data from students, and improves the learning materials. It’s open-minded but focused on better outcomes. As a not-for-profit, open-source project in higher education, Torus stands out in making learning more effective.

Read more about OLI Torus and get started

Oli Torus biggest update 

Get in contact with us!

IMG Play has been honored with the prestigious 2023 Børsen Gazelle award!

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IMG_play is honored to receive the 2023 Børsen Gazelle award, and we extend our gratitude to our dedicated team, partners, and customers who have played a vital role in our journey.  

This recognition is a testament to our unwavering commitment to growth and excellence.

The Børsen Gazelle Award is given to rapidly growing and successful companies. It’s typically awarded to businesses that demonstrate substantial growth in revenue or gross profit over a specific number of years, while also displaying sound finances.

The award acknowledges our dedication to advancing the boundaries of success. The Børsen Gazelle award, organized by the renowned Danish financial newspaper, Børsen, is a celebration of small and medium-sized businesses that have achieved remarkable growth and success. This year, in 2023, IMG_play has emerged in Denmark’s business landscape, garnering the prize. It recognizes our consistent efforts in driving innovation and contributing to the Danish business community.  

Learn more about the Børsen Gazelle Prize 

Get in touch with us