Module 3: Business Case and Benefits in Foundation Modules, Curricula on Web Accessibility

Introduce business case benefits of accessibility. Provide examples of organizations that have adopted accessibility. For more information on this, refer to The Business Case for Digital Accessibility.

Learning Outcomes for Topic

Students should be able to:

• List examples of organizations that have adopted accessibility, and the benefits these organizations report.
• Explain how accessibility can:
  • Benefit people with and without disabilities.
  • Enhance brand reputation and help demonstrate social responsibility.
  • Help reduce overall maintenance and remediation costs.
  • Promote human-centered design approaches, which result in more usable products.
• Describe some potential risks of not addressing accessibility, such as possible lawsuits and costly litigations.

Teaching Ideas for Topic

Optional ideas to teach the learning outcomes:

• Introduce case studies of organizations which have adopted accessibility. Explain the resulting benefits, such as improved brand reputation or improved search results ranking.
• Compare the cost and effectiveness of integrating accessibility requirements into a project from the start versus integrating accessibility later. Discuss the need to integrate accessibility requirements and standards into procurement as well as development processes.
• Provide analogies between digital accessibility, and social and architectural accessibility. For example, relate digital accessibility to curb cuts in sidewalks that benefit people with strollers, carts, luggage, bicycles, etc.
• Discuss how accessibility features benefit many people in different situations, such as mobile phone users, older adults, and people using different hardware. Explain that many features originally designed for accessibility have become mainstream, such as text to speech, voice controls, captions, etc.
• Promote discussion among students about which accessibility features they are familiar with. For example, ask them if they have used voice to dictate or to listen to messages. Elaborate on how these features improve overall user experience.
• Explain legal requirements relevant to some organizations, for example, national and regional policies. Outline the increasing uptake internationally, including in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
• Provide some examples of legal incidences with organizations in your region. If it is not possible, you can use examples from The Business Case for Digital Accessibility (Minimize Legal Risk).
• Refer to specific legal cases related to accessibility and present their settlements or outcomes. Find cases that were both upheld as well as dismissed to determine the reasons for the outcome and explore why the case was brought up.

Ideas to Assess Knowledge for Topic

Optional ideas to support assessment:

• Practice — Students perform a specific task with the virtual assistant in their mobile phones. For example, students read the news, query the weather, or check items into a shopping cart. Assess students’ capacity to recognize innovation behind features originally designed for accessibility that many people use nowadays.
• Portfolio — Students research how an organization could benefit from improving accessibility. Assess students’ capacity to outline business opportunities gained from taking this approach.
• Presentation — Students research and describe different mainstream accessibility features that they are already using, for example on their mobile phone, or accessibility features that they may want to use in the future. Assess students’ capacity to identify accessibility features that others can enjoy.
• Report — Students write a report about publicly-available accessibility testimonials and business case arguments from different organizations. Advise students that testimonials are often not easy to verify and may require further analysis. Assess students’ capacity to identify business case arguments that others are using to implement accessibility.
• Reflective Journal — Students study article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and share their understanding of the core concepts of it. Assess students’ understanding of the core concepts of article 9.
• Portfolio — Students research if there are accessibility laws and policies applicable to an organization of their choice. Assess students’ understanding of implications of legal requirements depending on business sector, size, and nature of organizations.