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Holistic Enterprise Accessibility Review Technique (HEART)

Ensuring Government Digital Services Accessibility

Image with the 5 phases of the HEART process

About

To build a holistic delivery system that ensures government digital services are accessible to everyone.

Challenge

.gov websites are not accessible

Problem

  • Dated policies/practices
  • Not baked into procurement
  • Legacy technology/tools
  • Limited accessibility proficiency
  • No culture of accessibility

Solution

  • Ensure policies follow best practices
  • Embrace accessible procurement
  • Use inclusive tools and frameworks
  • Invest in staffing/training
  • Build a network of champions

Our Process

Stakeholders

All members of a team play a role in accessibility. Executives, procurement officers, developers, product/project managers, operations, design teams and content authors all need to be engaged.

Holistic

HEART addresses the following organization issues: policy, procurement, technical, resourcing and culture. We provide concrete improvements to internal processes and leave teams with artifacts that will make implementing accessibility easier.

Phases

  • Scan
  • Discover
  • Review
  • Recommend
  • Implement

Scan

  • Conduct organization-wide accessibility scans
  • Implement initial review to identify accessibility barriers
  • Identify accessibility tools and common digital frameworks
  • Provide raw data from the scans for further analysis
  • Aggregate accessibility findings and related observations

Discover

  • Interview digital teams to understand stakeholders' processes
  • Identify common experiences and challenges
  • Aggregate additional accessibility resources
  • Highlight strengths and weaknesses of the team

Review

Policy

  • Examine organizational policy and procedures
  • Document accessibility work for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
  • Ensure clear responsibilities in existing policies
  • Compare findings with global best practices
  • Engage digital stakeholders in reviewing recommendations

Technology

  • Identify available accessibility software to digital team
  • Review accessibility in continuous integration processes
  • Check for organization-wide accessibility monitoring tools
  • Improve authoring tools to support content creators
  • Engage designers and developers in the findings

Recommend

  • Aggregate findings into a comprehensive report
    • create tailored recommendations based on findings
    • list improvements in policies and technology based on reviews
  • Highlight ways to promote accessibility throughout the organization
    • provide concrete ways to build accessibility into the culture
    • suggest appropriate training options for key staff

Implement

  • Strategize: define next steps in your accessibility journey
  • Train: build accessibility confidence within your team
  • Coach: support all digital roles to incorporate accessibility
  • Deploy: establish an evergreen approaches to remove barriers
  • Monitor: ensure your organization continues to improve

Learn More

  • Contact: CivicActions Accessibility Team, accessibility-qa.civicactions.com