The accessibility of your online presence is a key part of ensuring that you are meeting job-seeker and employer needs. It also acts as an important marketing and sales device to show that your organisation ‘walks the talk’ and has credibility as a disability employment provider.
A common question is: “Where to start?” Media Access Australia CEO Alex Varley presented at the Disability Employment Australia conference on 19 August 2015, looking at Digital Accessibility – The Quick Wins.
A key point is that whilst you ultimately need to review the accessibility of your online presence, there are some areas that should have priority. This checklist should help you focus on what will get you started and dealing with major issues first:
- What is the largest disability group you deal with? It makes sense to focus on the needs of the main groups you deal with. If it is blind and vision impaired people, website and basic document accessibility is vital. For mental health and cognitive disabilities, Easy English and alternative ways of communicating information (such as recording a job application) are good starting points.
- What are key parts of your process? Are you expecting everything to be done online? Then you need to target your online systems first. If you are using electronic direct mail (eDM) to target job seekers, then these need to be accessible.
- Do you understand basic accessibility of office software and hardware? A major barrier to employing people with disabilities is the perception that they will need specialist equipment to undertake basic office tasks. In fact, most access needs can be met through standard office software (like Microsoft Office) and using normal workplace equipment. As a specialist provider you should know the basics in how to set these up and be able to give the employer confidence in helping the disabled employee.
- Have you looked at your documents and communications? It is relatively easy to make documents accessible using common programs such as Word and then turning them into accessible PDFs or web content. You should give your staff some basic training in document accessibility and create and use accessible templates. That way all of your documents can be accessible.
- Make a public commitment to being digitally accessible. This provides you with a strong sales and credibility angle, and some external pressure to ensure that you do become and continue to be accessible.
- The most important thing is to get started. Breaking down your digital accessibility plan into specific items means that you can deal with each one as you go along and improve your level of accessibility each week.
Why is this important?
The 2015 e-recruiting and accessible technology survey by American organisation Peatworks highlighted that the most important e-accessibility issues in the recruitment process are:
- Complex navigation of websites
- Timeout restrictions where a site times out too quickly for the user to complete
- Lack of captions on videos
- No alternative text used for images
- Poor screen contrast
- Inaccessible form fields
- Mouse-only input options
If you are dealing with all disabilities, then looking at these issues can also ensure that you are picking up the quick wins and dealing with the issues that have the most impact first.
If you want some help
If you are not sure where to start and how to identify your priorities, a good tool is the Digital Accessibility Maturity Assessment, where Media Access Australia’s experts do a quick review of your digital accessibility across your organisation and provide a snapshot of how you are going and practical steps to take to improve accessibility.
Media Access Australia can also provide specific training in accessible content creation, make existing documents accessible and provide help with your website.