National Disability Authority AccessIT Guidelines

The National Disability Authority commission Frontend to develop accessibility guidelines for electronically delivered services.

The Project

The guidelines are provided as a resource for producers and procurers of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) products and services. They aim to give guidance on how to ensure that these products and services are accessible to as wide an audience as possible, including people with disabilities.

Requirements

Frontend made extensive use of User Centred Design techniques to ensure that the Guidelines provide effective and practical assistance to the widest possible audience. From the outset it was apparent that the key stakeholder groups had different requirements from the project. Frontend conducted a range of users requirements gathering tasks:

• Interviews with IT Development companies and suppliers to the public sector.
• Interviews advocacy and disabilities with people groups.
• Interviews with public sector officials responsible for procurement.
• Round table discussions with stakeholders, domain experts and the project team.

Research

Frontend accessibility consultants reviewed the available literature from around the world to ensure that the Irish guidelines represent best practice and are largely consistent with guidelines from other countries and worldwide bodies such as the W3C. Particular attention was paid to the Web section of the guidelines, which is intended to work in conjunction with the W3Cs own Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Content Developement

The text content for the guidelines was developed over several months. The writers took care to ensure that the text was in plain English and could be easily understood by non-technical readers. The draft content was published online so that the members of the stakeholder group and the Advisory Board could keep up to date with changes and additions. The members of the Advisory board also reviewed the drafts formally at several stages and usability was confirmed by a round of user testing with representative users.

Publishing

The draft guideline content was developed into an accessible website using many of the techniques and design principles recommended in the content. Frontend also developed visual content and illustrations to demonstrate particular issues.

The Result

Irish National Disability Authority IT Accessibility Guidelines Version 1.1 were launched in April 2002. They are available online at www.accessit.nda.ie

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