Prioritizing Remediation of Accessibility Issues

About MeKarl Groves, Dir. of Training, Deque Systems

karl.groves@deque.com

@karlgroves

571-455-4862 Also, a rock star*

Agenda• What is an accessibility issue?• Why prioritize?• Understanding risk• Challenges• Remediation Approaches– Considerations– Simple Prioritization– Advanced Prioritization

Things to keep in mind• I am mathematically challenged• This topic is exploratory, not declarative– Please participate, ask questions, offer new ideas

WHAT IS AN ACCESSIBILITY ISSUE?

What is an Accessibility Issue?• Bug: Term used to describe

an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways.

WHY PRIORITIZE?

Why Prioritize?• Apply resources most effectively• Minimize accessibility’s impact on business• Motivate development staff• Maximize positive impact for users• Reduction of Risk

UNDERSTANDING RISK

Understanding Risk• Risk is the potential that a

chosen action or activity (including the choice of inaction) will lead to a loss (an undesirable outcome).

Understanding Risk• Ultimately, remediation of bugs is an effort at

risk mitigation• Risks of– Poor quality (Users having problem with system)– Lost income– Ancillary losses– Administrative Complaint (public sector)– Litigation

Understanding Risk• Probability

Probability = (number of negative events) / (population)

Understanding Risk• Risk Amount

Risk Amount = (probability of a negative event) * (expected loss in case of negative event)

Understanding Risk• ROI

ROI = ((Risk Amount - Investment)/ Investment)*100

Where:Risk Amount = Expected loss * probabilityInvestment = Money spent on Accessibility

CHALLENGESWhat factors impact our ability to fix our system?

Challenges• Not all accessibility problems are equal– Time– Impact• Impact on Users• Impact on Business

• WCAG Level & SC is inappropriate for determining priority

Challenges• Time– Often at a premium– Time spent on after-the-

fact bug repairs is time that is taken away from meeting other business needs

– See, “Technical Debt”, Martin Fowler

Challenges• Impact– Budgets– Resources– System

REMEDIATION APPROACHES

Simple Prioritization• Simple Prioritization– Focused solely on time

and (simple) impact

– How long will it take?– How bad is the problem?

Simple Prioritization• Pros– Focused on the user– Super simple– Often, “hunch” from

expert is as good as something more formal

• Cons– Does not take into

consideration impact on business or system

Advanced Prioritization• User Impact• Ease & Speed• Impact on Interface• Volume• Location• Secondary Benefit

• Each item ranked: None (0), Low (1), Medium (2), High (3)

Advanced Prioritization• Impact on Users with Disabilities

– Broken down by type of user & impact on each

• IB - Blind• IV – Visually Impaired (non-blind)• IH – Deaf & HoH• IM – Motor • IC - Cognitive• IS – Speech

• Impact* = (IB + IV + IH + IM + IC + IS)

Advanced Prioritization• Ease and Speed of

Repair

Advanced Prioritization• Impact on Interface &

Operation

Advanced Prioritization• Volume of Repeat

Issues– How many times does

the exact same issue occur?

– How many times do (very) similar issues occur?

Advanced Prioritization• Location of Issues– Traffic– Criticality of location

Advanced Prioritization• Secondary Benefit

– Older Users– Low Literacy Users– Low Bandwidth Users– Reduced Dev/ Maintenance time– Alternate Devices– SEO– Usability

• Tie to org goals

Advanced Prioritization• (Impact + Repair Speed + Location + Secondary Benefits) * Volume = Priority

• Sort all issues according to priority• Fix em!

Advanced Prioritization• What’s missing?– Normalize data?– Do some of this ahead of time?– Importance ranking for each factor– Risk from Litigious user types?

MANAGING REMEDIATIONDilution

Managing Remediation• You have a report full of

bugs• Now what do you do?

Managing Remediation• Managing Remediation is a process not unlike

dilution in chemistry– Dilution: The process of reducing the concentration

of a solute in solution

• In our case: reducing concentration (defect density) in a system

Concentration = numBugs/linesOfCode

Accessibility Errors

- Low Priority

- Medium Priority

- High Priority

Non-CompliantSystem

Mostly-CompliantSystem

Partially-CompliantSystem

Managing Remediation

Fully-Compliant System

Managing Remediation

Managing Remediation• Measuring improvement(concentrationStart - concentrationEnd) / time

Only 1st order accurate. Perfect for snapshots.

CONCLUSION

Conclusion• In the quest for #perfectA11y, prioritization helps

us get closer quicker• We must maximize efficiency to have high

positive impact• Multiple factors exist that can be used to

determine priority• Iterate remediation efforts to progressively dilute

them• We can measure success

Connecting with Deque

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