RE: Advice on AA conformation

Andrew, What you're asking is really more of a legal question than an accessibility one, but I'd like to answer anyway, based on my experience with Section 508 in the US. The UK and US legal system are similar enough that my response may at least help frame some strategy moving forward, but keep in mind I'm neither a lawyer in the US or UK. The situation you've presented, where you have 2 different sets of results, is a common problem with accessibility auditing/ consulting work. Often, an auditor will pull out a copy of their desired industry standard, go down the list, and for each provision (or guideline, whichever term you prefer) ask themselves "Do we meet this?", jot down some notes and move on to the next provision. Doing audits in this manner is inefficient, often inaccurate, and most definitely neither repeatable or actionable. Two different people auditing the same system in this manner will very often get different results. Further, the same person, doing a regression audit will often get different results as well. What is needed, therefore, is a more well defined and mature auditing methodology. The benefits to such an approach goes beyond efficiency and quality of the audits produced and has huge legal implications, as I'll discuss later. A mature auditing methodology should be based upon the use of Best Practices. For each provision of each industry standard you want to comply with, you should go through and detail the exact conformance criteria necessary for meeting that individual provision. For each Best Practice in your list, you should provide detailed test instructions defining exactly how it is determined whether you have or have not met that Best Practice's criteria. What this does, from a testing perspective, is gives you a clear and concrete set of criteria against which all of your systems will be tested now and in the future. In doing so, you're able to "zero out" any difference between one person's understanding of conformance vs. their peers', and you've also defined your acceptance criteria for future regression audits. Lastly, you've now given your developers/ vendors the criteria against which their work will be measured in the future. Over time, the net effect is not only much greater accuracy and repeatability of results, a much higher degree of accessibility of your systems. As I mentioned, I'm not a lawyer, but this is what my experience tells me on the legal front: >From a legal standpoint you're also going to be putting yourself into a position of defensibility, should complaints arise. By creating a detailed set of conformance criteria (the Best Practices), you've documented your company's commitment to compliance and your approach toward measuring it. By evaluating against that well-defined set of conformance criteria, you've documented the fact that you have - or are putting into place - a mature program of ensuring compliance. By exposing the developers to the Best Practices, you're putting into motion actual effort toward becoming more compliant. All of this put together establishes defensibility in the courts. Nothing will ever stop a complainant from coming along and saying "Andrew Laws website is inaccessible", but if your company puts into place a mature, well-documented program for compliance, you will definitely become both more accessible (the goal, of course) and reduce your exposure to risk. Hope that helps, and best of luck to you. Karl Groves Director of Strategic Planning and Product Development SSB BART Group karl.groves@ssbbartgroup.com 703.637.8961 (o) 443.889.8763 (c) http://www.ssbbartgroup.com Accessibility-On-Demand From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Andy Laws Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:44 AM To: WAI Interest Group list Subject: Advice on AA conformation Dear All We have come across a scenario lately, where 2 different accessibility audits have produced different results, As a company we are legally obliged to provide AA compliant web aplications, however this is very subjective, how as a company do we protect ourselves legally ie if we have met all checkpoint guide lines, is this sufficient Many Regards Andrew -- Andrew Laws Bsc(Hons) MBCS, FBCS Web-Sites: www.opelnet.co.uk www.cubiks.com www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk e-mail: adlaws@gmail.com Telephone:: +44 (0) 7828822987

Andrew,

 

What you’re asking is really more of a legal question than an accessibility one, but I’d like to answer anyway, based on my experience with Section 508 in the US.   The UK and US legal system are similar enough that my response may at least help frame some strategy moving forward, but keep in mind I’m neither a lawyer in the US or UK.

 

The situation you’ve presented, where you have 2 different sets of results, is a common problem with accessibility auditing/ consulting work.  Often, an auditor will pull out a copy of their desired industry standard, go down the list, and for each provision (or guideline, whichever term you prefer) ask themselves “Do we meet this?”, jot down some notes and move on to the next provision.   Doing audits in this manner is inefficient, often inaccurate, and most definitely neither repeatable or actionable.   Two different people auditing the same system in this manner will very often get different results.  Further, the same person, doing a regression audit will often get different results as well.  What is needed, therefore, is a more well defined and mature auditing methodology.  The benefits to such an approach goes beyond efficiency and quality of the audits produced and has huge legal implications, as I’ll discuss later.

 

A mature auditing methodology should be based upon the use of Best Practices.   For each provision of each industry standard you want to comply with, you should go through and detail the exact conformance criteria necessary for meeting that individual provision.    For each Best Practice in your list, you should provide detailed test instructions defining exactly how it is determined whether you have or have not met that Best Practice’s criteria.   What this does, from a testing perspective, is gives you a clear and concrete set of criteria against which all of your systems will be tested now and in the future.  In doing so, you’re able to “zero out” any difference between one person’s understanding of conformance vs. their peers’, and you’ve also defined your acceptance criteria for future regression audits.  Lastly, you’ve now given your developers/ vendors the criteria against which their work will be measured in the future.  Over time, the net effect is not only much greater accuracy and repeatability of results, a much higher degree of accessibility of your systems.

 

 

As I mentioned, I’m not a lawyer, but this is what my experience tells me on the legal front:

From a legal standpoint you’re also going to be putting yourself into a position of defensibility, should complaints arise.  By creating a detailed set of conformance criteria (the Best Practices), you’ve documented your company’s commitment to compliance and your approach toward measuring it.  By evaluating against that well-defined set of conformance criteria, you’ve documented the fact that you have – or are putting into place – a mature program of ensuring compliance.  By exposing the developers to the Best Practices, you’re putting into motion actual effort toward becoming more compliant.  All of this put together establishes defensibility in the courts.    Nothing will ever stop a complainant from coming along and saying  “Andrew Laws website is inaccessible”, but if your company puts into place a mature, well-documented program for compliance, you will definitely become both more accessible (the goal, of course) and reduce your exposure to risk.

 

Hope that helps, and best of luck to you.

 

 

 

Karl Groves
Director of Strategic Planning and Product Development

SSB BART Group
karl.groves@ssbbartgroup.com
703.637.8961 (o)
443.889.8763 (c)
http://www.ssbbartgroup.com

Accessibility-On-Demand

 

From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Andy Laws
Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:44 AM
To: WAI Interest Group list
Subject: Advice on AA conformation

 

Dear All

 

 

We have come across a scenario lately, where 2 different accessibility audits have produced different results, As a company we are legally obliged to provide AA compliant web aplications, however this is very subjective, how as a company do we protect ourselves legally ie if we have met all checkpoint guide lines, is this sufficient

 

 

Many Regards

 

Andrew

--
Andrew Laws Bsc(Hons) MBCS, FBCS
Web-Sites:
www.opelnet.co.uk
www.cubiks.com
www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk
e-mail: adlaws@gmail.com
Telephone:: +44 (0) 7828822987