Making Your UA Accessible to All

Accessibility is about designing products so that more people can use them effectively in more situations, specifically people with disabilities and older users. Making products accessible is good business, is important for society, and is a legal requirement in more and more situations. As attention to accessibility of products continues to grow, accessibility of our user assistance will be an even greater factor.

There are now a plethora of resources on accessibility -- so many that it's hard to know where to start and what applies to your specific situation. This session directs you to key resources so you can get the answers you need fast. It includes a brief update on international accessibility standards, and offers an approach to accessibility based on user-centered design (UCD)/user experience (UX).

With engaging stories and illustrations, Shawn will show how to use methodologies and techniques from UCD/UX to make your user assistance more usable and effective for more people in more situations -- including older users, people with disabilities, people using mobile devices, and everyone. You'll get specific guidance on using new resources to improve the accessibility approach in your organization, starting now.

You will learn:

• The importance of accessibility for individuals, organizations, society, and you yourself
• Approaches for making all types of UA accessible
• How accessibility techniques fit well within UCD/UX methodologies
• The status of international accessibility standards
• About resources to help you:
  • integrate accessibility into your processes
  • develop a business case for accessibility
  • use accessibility guidelines and standards
  • understand how people with disabilities use technology
  • design for older users