Accessibility mission, reflecting on our first quarter

At the beginning of October 2023, we announced our mission to become the most accessible platform in the world. As part of the mission, we will provide quarterly updates and here is some of the progress we have made within our first quarter. 

Product development and WCAG 2.2 updates

Since October when the final version of  WCAG 2.2 was published we’ve been focusing on audits and related fixes of various internal templates, themes and design systems to ensure the new success criteria are met by default. As part of this work we’ve also started to increase our AAA and best practice coverage in certain areas.

In our creative team, we’ve been focused on improvements to our creative themes and design system. In our engineering team, we’ve been auditing and improving Galaxies themes and Blog templates.

Training and learning

We’ve continued to roll out accessibility training to our internal teams. Our goal is that no matter the department you work in, you will have a high-level understanding of web accessibility and the tools to apply improvements to our everyday work. Training for the marketing team and periodic refresher training for the testing team is now complete. 

As WCAG 2.2 changes happened, we ran internal drop-ins to ensure our team are educated and knowledgeable about the changes. We also launched a new Accessibility Champions group to ensure our team stay engaged and are advocates for accessibility across our company. 

Additionally, we must train and educate our alliance partners. We’ve developed partner training to ensure our partners understand accessibility and have the accessible tools they need to support digital inclusion. We will roll this out in the new year.

Partner alliance network

We continue to work closely with our accessibility partners. Recently we attended TechShare Pro, run by our partner AbilityNet. This is an important conference to learn about the latest accessibility developments and technology, as well as collaborate with like-minded peers. We have been planning more activities to support our customers with a roundtable happening in January which will bring together a small group of customers to provide them with a space to work with other organisations driving towards the same accessibility goals. We have also signed up to Sponsor Axe-Con, a large virtual accessibility conference run by Deque. As a community support sponsor, our sponsorship fund of $2500 is donated to Black Girls Code, NV Access, and the Disability Visibility Project.

We are also building on our alliance partnership network with more coming soon. 

Educating the market

A new Jadu Whitepaper written by Mark Chillingworth, was launched this month which consisted of high-level interviews with Senior Leadership focused on driving a digital accessibility culture and how the technology and public sector work better together. The Whitepaper brought together technology and public sector organisations including; Hyland, Konica Minolta, Silktide, Ability Net, Hassell Inclusion, Logan City Council, Rochdale Borough Council, Wigan Council, and American Universities.

Key takeaways included:

• the evolution of regulations, disruption, and social change
• the benefits of integrating accessibility into your strategy for you and your customers
• how to foster accessibility as a culture, with a focus on senior leadership
• the power of driving change together

It’s a thought-provoking read that we recommend everyone spends some time looking at.

Read the whitepaper. 

We’ve got in our plan a whole suite of education videos which will start to launch to the market from January/February. James Jacobs our Accessibility Lead will be recording important accessibility guidance to support not only our customers but the wider Public Sector and technology communities. 

A message from our CEO

For over two decades, since the inception of Jadu, our unwavering commitment to accessibility has been the driving force behind our journey. From the very first lines of code, we embedded accessibility into the very DNA of the Jadu platform. We've achieved remarkable milestones along the way, from pioneering the use of pure CSS on government websites to earning accolades for our design and UX innovations. However, our proudest moment is the audacious challenge we've set for ourselves. Accessibility isn't just a feature for us; it's a fundamental philosophy that guides every aspect of our work. Partnering with industry leaders like Silktide, AbilityNet, and Shaw Trust, we've tirelessly pursued innovative solutions to ensure that our platform is a beacon of accessibility for all users. Today, we aspire to put our customers at the forefront of accessibility, poised to realize our mission of becoming the world's most accessible digital platform.

Read our latest accessibility Whitepaper.