Web Directions Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

Building organisational WCAG maturity through accessibility audits

Here at Deakin University Library we aim to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA compliance. We try to embed accessibility into everything we do, but we have challenges:

• we have dozens of platforms serving up content to our students, researchers, staff, and community
• we have better visibility of accessibility compliance across some platforms over others
• we struggle to have a ‘bird’s eye’ view of the current state of accessibility across our complex digital ecosystem
• we are dependent on auto-generated reports, which are limited in what criteria they can assess

Sound familiar? To address these challenges, we decided to conduct a multi-platform accessibility audit across 16 of our content platforms and use the results to identify, implement and advocate for improvements.

Some amazing bonuses of the approach we took include:

• developing a repeatable process and toolkit for future audits,
• increased awareness amongst library colleagues and platform managers around accessibility, and
• some deep team capability growth in accessibility testing, reporting, tools and techniques.

This presentation will unpack drivers, decision points, process and outcomes of our approach. Plus we’ll share some tips and tools for doing this in other organisations!

Danielle Johnson

Danielle has worked in academic institutions for 20+ years. At Deakin University Library, she leads a small but multi-talented team of UX researchers, content specialists, designers and front-end and integration developers working together to apply an evidence-led and human-centred approach to delivering library digital experiences. She actively seeks opportunities to innovate and experiment. At the same time, she has a keen eye on delivering practical, continuous improvement to today’s library experience challenges. Danielle holds a MSc in Information Studies (Information and Knowledge Management).