Re: Retrofitting doc for 27 January 2006 EOWG Teleconference

Hello Group,
1. Going backwards, I vote for "Improving the accessibility of your website" 
as the title for the doc. "Retrofitting"  may be harder to understand. 
"Improving" somehow  connotes a continuous process which it is.

2. In the audience, QA and testing  staff should also be covered besides Web 
project managers and developers.
It is necessary to emphasize somewhere that checking for accessibility 
should be part of overall QA process that is carried out before Web content 
is published.
3. I believe establishing goals for Web accessibility should be at the top 
of the document after Understanding Accessibility and before/after the 
section on Prioritizing. Once the goal is fixed then measurement and 
implementation processes can follow.
    One should take into account the size of the site, types of content 
(online forms, multi media presence, wheteher content is generally static or 
frequently changing etc), Web dev processes and resources and determine 
accessibility goals or policy that an organization should adhere to. The org 
should decide that we will aim for level 'A' conformance in the first phase 
or level 'AA' in the first phase etc. The agreed policy should be documented 
and communicated with reasoning in order to ensure motivation and successful 
implementation.
4. Need to emphasize that accessibility is a continuous process and needs to 
be integrated into design, authoring and QA processes. This should stand out 
clearly from a reading of the doc. An org.'s management should be able to 
grasp this and understand the commitment that the accessibility initiative 
calls for.

Thanks,
Sailesh Panchang
Senior Accessibility Engineer
Deque Systems Inc
Web: www.deque.com
11180 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite #400
Reston VA 20191 (U.S.A.)
Phone: 703-225-0380 ext 105
E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com

Received on Thursday, 26 January 2006 17:16:31 UTC