Accessibility Champion
We have promoted champions for accessibility in almost every digital team in Gjensidige Forsikringer, and Gjensidige Pensjon. This is an added role to that person, and they are otherwise front-end developers or UX-designers.
Introduction
Accessibility Champions are individuals who plays a key role in ensuring that our digital products and interfaces are accessible to all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities.
What they do
As this is an added role to existing tasks time available can vary greatly, but we expect champions to leading the way in these areas:
- Both help their teams to lift accessibility on the daily agenda, and reaches out to the guild when they need help.
- Front-end developers take a proactive role in implementing accessibility best practices within your solutions.
- UX designer takes a proactive role in designing digital products that are in line with accessibility best practices.
- Front-end developers and UX designers share responsibility for verifying digital products – this includes manual and automated testing.
Responsibility
Understand the 4 accessibility principles - POUR: Accessibility champions know the 4 accessibility principles:
- Perceivable
- Operatable
- Understandable
- Robust
Familiarity of WCAG guidelines: Accessibility champions should be familiar with the WCAG, which provides a set of internationally recognized standards for making web content more accessible. They should understand the different levels of conformance (A, AA, and AAA) and the 35 specific success criteria outlined for the Private sector.
Testing and validation: Accessibility champions should be familiar with accessibility testing tools and techniques, and they should validate their work against WCAG guidelines to ensure that the website, web application, and mobile app meets the required accessibility standards.
Continuous learning: Accessibility champions have responsibility for following standards and best practices which are constantly evolving, and should be committed to staying up-to-date with the latest accessibility developments and integrating new techniques into their workflow.
Good for everyone: Accessibility champions are the voice of inclusive design for their team. They make a commitment to accessibility from the beginning of the design and development process so that we get better product, more usable products, and more inclusive products. Accessibility benefits all users. Opening up for more potential customers, better UX and improved SEO.
Tools at hand
Guild: All the champions together form a guild, consisting of a cross-disciplinary mix of front-end developers and UX-designers, making it possible for the group as a whole to solve issues in the best way available. They can reach out to each other whenever they need to discuss something.
Forum: The guild gathers once every month, or more often if needed, for an hour or two. At these gatherings (called forum) they discuss common issues, find the best way forward, and try to turn these discussions into Gjensidige-principles for further improving accessibility in Gjensidige's digital products.
Documentation: The pages you are currently reading, and the documentation found within Storybook, are all key tools for the champions, to help them reach out with best practices to all working with digital products in Gjensidige.
Training: We can use the champions to target special training on accessibility, instead of having everyone participate.