Digital accessibility — Yes we can!
Digital accessibility means that digital tools are designed and developed so that all users, with or without disability, can use them. It is a subject not so well-known yet but more essential and global than you think.
In this International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we give you an overview on what is done at the TotalEnergies Digital Factory (TDF). Carefully read this article and try to take this subject into consideration in the best way you can.
This type of accessibility can help a wide range of users, including those with cognitive, hearing, physical, visual disabilities, either permanent or temporary. At the TDF, many issues regarding the subject have been identified.
Firstly, building inclusive products that will be usable by everyone whatever their disability is part of our goal and Responsible Mindset. To do so, we have to take this subject into account as early as possible in the journey of our Minimum Viable Products (MVP), right from the development. It must be fully integrated in our actions.
Secondly, the Company has signed charters and manifesto for the integration of all employees and the subject is clearly mentioned. We have to be exemplary on digital subjects and thoroughly follow TotalEnergies commitments to improve inclusion and prevent all sort of discrimination.
Thirdly, there is a legal obligation for digital products and services in France detailed in the “Référentiel Général d’Amélioration de l’Accessibilité” (RGAA), based on the international guidelines called Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). More than 100 rules to follow are listed in it. Let’s do our best to follow these.
What is our action plan?
The ambition, which may at first seem impossible, is to improve digital accessibility everywhere and for all. An action plan has been established for the years to come: Share, Train, Integrate, with specific goals for the TDF and its employees.
Share the subject through diverse communications, such as videos or articles, and make sure it is presented to all the new joiners. Specific employees have been identified along with volunteers to be ambassadors of this responsible objective.
Train the direct actors on the subject such as the developers or designers.
Integrate it in the products we develop by following elements identified in previous MVP accessibility assessments and regularly check them.
All of us, to a maximum, are part of this great challenge. This is a collective approach even if some of us are more involved than others.
What do TDF employees think and do?
Emmanuel, UI designer :
“A few weeks ago, we worked on the new TotalEnergies design kit.
As a Product designer, the challenge of creating a new design kit was to make it accessible. Indeed, I wanted to add this specificity, so that all employees can easily take it in hand. It is thanks to precise tools and methodology for naming components (such as name and function) that our design kit can now even be used for example by people with dyschromatopsia, a deficiency in colour vision. In our tool, the elements are not simply defined by the colors, but by their theming and their role, which allows us to communicate a better level of information to designers.
This desire to offer a tool that can be used by the greatest number is part of a general transition to accessibility within TotalEnergies, and within the design of applications for our employees: Simplifying the use and design of products by a better accessibility.”
Simon, Innovation Tech lead :
“Stand Together is in our DNA at TotalEnergies, we have complementary skills/expertise/networks to create content and interactions with everyone in the Company. Technology is now mature enough, tools are available and working, it only takes humans to integrate it into our daily life.
As an Innovation Tech Lead, I share my expertise, attitude and network with all the employees having great ideas in favor of inclusion. As a technological facilitator, I am here to simplify technical implementation and to share a vision where technology serves the needs of millions of humans on earth.”
Mea-Linda, Lead Quality Assurance :
“As a Lead Quality Insurance, my goal on digital accessibility is to identify and increase our compliance. What a better way than a “test & learn” approach beginning with automated testing? Implementing automated accessibility testing within the Continuous Integration (CI) may be a time-saving way to answer this question.
You probably think another testing task to deal with will bring more complexity to the team and increase time to delivery. That is not what we aim at!
Today we choose the Axe-core test engine: it doesn’t require special expertise for development teams; it works with multiple languages testing tools, browsers, and also mobile devices; the integration is easy in CI; there is no need to wait for the end of development process to get consistent feedback an it can be adapted to your testing strategy, if you prefer to integrate accessibility checks within the test scenario or to have a dedicated job to audit all pages of your application.
The choice is done. Now it’s time to share the tool and make sure our developers use it.”
Having an accessible design kit is key, as designers can follow it without thinking specifically on digital accessibility criteria. The challenge today is the adoption by the Delivery members.
We are conscious that automated accessibility testing is not sufficient. They give us a first overview of the corrections to do in our products. To have the best accessible products, manual checks with users disabled and not disabled is necessary.
Next, the creation of an accessibility guide to share with the business will be very helpful.
Our project may be optimistic but it is worthwhile. It’s up to us to lay good foundations for accessibility. As Frederic Gimenez, TotalEnergies Chief Digital Officer, says “Let’s make collectively the best use of this digital lever for the inclusion of all by making it an asset and not a constraint!”. Yes we can!
Links
· French digital accessibility framework
All remarks are welcome, please send them to digital.accessibility@totalenergies.com
