Digital Accessibility
Access for all
Professional Advisory
Accessibility on the Internet is a matter of providing access to your information for the greatest number of people in any situation, irrespective of the browser technology.
Accessibility not only applies to a variety of users with a disability but also ensures access for people who cannot use a mouse, elderly people, people with reading disabilities and the growing number of users who browse the web using mobile phones, palm computers and speech-controlled browsers.
Although it is not difficult to correct the problems, the vast majority of web sites remain inaccessible to some degree. Correcting the problems will improve the general quality and usability of the web site for the benefit of all users.
Advisory
Sensus provides a range of consultancy services aimed at ensuring accessibility throughout all phases of the lifecycle of a website, from the initial development of ideas and concepts to the implementation and subsequent maintenance and administration. Therefore, we provide professional education and counselling aimed at developers, development agencies, designers, and design agencies.
We are also ready to provide our assistance throughout multiple stages in your digital accessibility journey.
Development
Sensus offers teaching and training for developers and development agencies.
With Sensus, you get access to competencies and experience that can be expensive and time-consuming to maintain in-house. Sensus assists in ensuring that the solutions live up to current guidelines and standards within digital accessibility.
Design
We offer advice and training to designers and design agencies.
We carry out structured analysis and assessments of solutions’ design and navigation structure. The result is a report that identifies potential accessibility issues and ideas for solutions.
Project Lifecycle
By considering accessibility throughout the development process, from start to finish, the best results are achieved.
Sensus offers consulting services relating to ensuring digital accessibility through the entire project lifecycle from the initial creation of an accessibility policy in relation to the preparation of tender documentation, requirement specifications and supplier selection to evaluation of both design and the implemented solution. Following the realise of a new solution, Sensus also offers training for the web editor in using the new CMS in an accessible way as well as in the production of accessible documents.
Our consulting services are flexible and is easily adapted to the specific wishes, requirements, priorities, deadlines and budgets in your project.
Expert Evaluation
Sensus has extensive experience in testing and evaluating digital solutions to ensure accessibility. Sensus evaaluate web and IT solutions, apps and documents, and carry out user tests.
We offer different types of expert evaluations:
- Digital Accessibility Evaluation
- User Test
- App Evaluation
Digital Accessibility
The Accessibility Audit/Expert Evaluation is conducted by professionals specialising in accessibility and accessible web design. The web site is exposed to a methodical and comprehensive accessibility audit, identifying areas of the web site which pose potential accessibility problems. The result of the audit is a written report including recommended changes to the web site.
The accessibility audit is completed as part of the expert evaluation. The accessibility audit is designed to identify a wide range of accessibility problems for people with special needs, including people who cannot use a mouse or other pointing device and/or people who use enabling technologies.
User Test
We also provide user tests. Sensus recommends that the Accessibility Audit/Expert Evaluation be supplemented by a user test. The user test is usually conducted by a group of 5 users based on the potential problems identified as part of the accessibility test. The participants in the user group use typical enabling technologies such as a trackball, screen magnification, screen readers and speech synthesizers. Including the results of the user test with potential workarounds, the result of an Accessibility Audit/Expert Evaluation with user test is similar to the specification above.
App Evaluation
Evaluation of mobile apps are conducted per the current guidelines from the W3C, Apple and Google. Sensus evaluates apps on Apple iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) and Google Android, as well as web-based apps on both platforms. The results are documented in an evaluation report with explanations of how any accessibility problems can be remedied.
Project Lifecycle
Sensus has developed a range of consultancy services aimed at ensuring accessibility throughout all phases of the lifecycle of a web site, from the initial development of ideas and concepts to the implementation and subsequent maintenance and administration of the web site.
Sensus recommends that you consider accessibility as early as possible in the lifecycle of a web site. We are here to help educate your developers and designers, evaluate your webpage, provide extensive feedback, and do a final audit before assisting you in writing out your final accessibility statement. Sensus is ready to be your partner throughout the process ensuring the best results.
Preparation
In the initial process, Sensus can assist with strategic advice, the creation of accessibility policy and various teaching in the form of courses and workshops.
Accessibility policy
The accessibility policy must be used to set up requirements concerning accessibility compliance. The accessibility requirements must be created both internally and externally and should be incorporated into (for example) the IT policy, the communication policy, the language policy and in design manuals.
The teaching of the project group
Sensus usually recommends that an initial course be held for employees as well as representatives from the supplier who are involved in the project of developing a new website. The purpose of the course is to ensure that project participants have a basic understanding of web accessibility and the guidelines for accessible web design.
Tenders
We assess requirement specifications and other tender documentation to ensure that the requirements set up for accessibility are comprehensive and do not containnelements that may lead to inaccessibility and that the project plan ensures the necessary time to test accessibility and solve any problems.
Acquisition
We can assist in selecting suppliers. Based on incoming offers, we can prepare a priority recommendation. The recommendation will be based on how the individual supplier offers are assessed to meet the requirements for accessibility.
We also offer a structured analysis and assessment of the technologies that are intended to be used in connection with a digital solution. Here, we draw on extensive experience in testing a wide range of development tools and content management systems.
Implementation
Based on a mock-up in HTML, we evaluate the design of the solution. The purpose is to ensure that your design aims to comply with the requirements for accessibility in relation to colours, contrasts, fonts, font sizes and navigation.
During the development process, the new solution should be tested for accessibility to identify any breaches of the guidelines for digital accessibility, so that these can be corrected in time.
Handover
Training of web editors
To ensure that the municipality's employees can use the editing functions in the new content management system (CMS) in an accessible manner, all employees who publish and maintain web content should complete a short course. This course can be completed in connection with the general education in the new CMS.
Final test
At the end of the project, the new solution should be tested for accessibility in order to verify that the solution complies with the requirements for accessibility.
User test
In addition to the final accessibility test, a user test may be performed with users with various sensorimotor and cognitive disabilities (blind, partially sighted, dyslexic, motor impaired). The user test can be used to identify accessibility problems just as it can be used to document that the solution actually can be used by users with special needs.