How to bake accessibility into your company culture
We’re sharing our 3 key ingredients so that you can create a culture of accessibility at your workplace, too.
What started a couple of years ago with a few passionate individuals has since evolved into the ecentricarts Accessibility Team (EAT), a cross-disciplinary and cross-project team that represents roughly a third of the company. Our regular discussions and knowledge sharing has lead to more accessible solutions, billable work, and happy coworkers. We’re a group of allies who work hard to build beautiful, accessible sites, and to learn something new every day.
Here are the three key ingredients you’ll need to create a culture of accessibility in your organization, agency, or studio:
1. Find/attract passionate people
Look for prospective employees who are already champions of accessibility, but don’t shy away from those with less experience, either:
- Our level of expertise may vary, (our job titles vary, too) but we all share the same willingness to learn
- We’re also motivated by the belief that everyone should be able to access information online (other motivations include snacks and a good sense of humour)
Give the champions who are already in your organization the proper time and tools to help educate others:
- Invest in great people so that they can help recruit more champions
2. Start a working group
Allot non-billable time for employees to get together and discuss accessibility-related things each week:
- The agenda should be up to the attendees — some people may have a design or code question to present to the team, while other sessions may focus on specific WCAG standards or accessibility legislation
- (We suggest that the members prepare a loose agenda ahead of each meeting, but the main goal should be that everyone leaves the room having learnt something new)
- Try to give the group some autonomy — if they’re as motivated as our team is, they’ll self-organize, learn a lot, and have fun in the process
Encourage anyone to attend — back-end developers, content strategists, project managers, you name it! Accessibility isn’t just for designers and front-end developers
Allow other communication channels for ad-hoc questions, or notable accessibility news:
- Encourage everyone in the studio to reach out to members any time they have a question or concern
- EAT has an open slack channel where useful links, news and questions are shared
- Common questions vary from “How can I make an accessible version of this feature?” to “One of my clients is interested in an inaccessible feature; how can I suggest a better solution?”
- Some questions are addressed over slack or in person, while others (if time allows) can be tackled during our weekly meeting
Document your resources and give everyone access:
- Try to store working group notes on your company server or a shared Google Drive folder
- Record good (and terrible) examples of accessibility during each meeting — you can learn a lot from both!
3. Become advocates in and out of the office
As the working group’s collective skills increase, start compiling notes and teach others:
- Hold a series of accessibility Lunch & Learns in the office
- Distill key lessons or quick wins into short presentations for the entire studio
- Lunch & Learns are great opportunities to recruit/remind other coworkers that they’re welcome to join the working group
Organize your own events or purchase tickets to local accessibility meet-ups:
- Events are a great way to put your company on the map and show your expertise
- We recently went to a11yTO’s first conference, and last August, we hosted a successful day of accessibility talks with fellow North American Kentico CMS partners
Connect on social media:
- Twitter is still alive and well in the tech sphere — a lot of developers, designers, agencies, and accessibility leaders are frequent users
- Track the hashtag #a11y for the latest web accessibility articles and use it to take part in the discussion or promote your own accessible work
- We recently created an #a11y all stars Twitter list featuring our favourite accessibility mentors
- Sharing accessibility-related content on your social channels is also a great way to keep accessibility top of mind within the company and for your followers
Now, combine ingredients & bake until ready
Like most good food, it might take time for your work’s culture to develop, and you might have to tweak your recipe once in a while. However, if you stick to it (find the right people, keep learning, and start sharing) you could end up with a solid batch of engaged web accessibility advocates… Just like these fine folks, below!
If you’re in need of an accessibility overhaul or a bit of guidance to get started, we’d love to hear from you! Fill out our contact form and let’s get in touch.
