Improving BT's web presence

Improving BT’s web presence

www.bt.comwww.bt.com/inclusionwww.btplc.com/inclusion/btsign/

David Barrett

Senior Accessibility

and Inclusion

manager

Who am I?

Why be inclusive?

I have seen what technology can do for people with disabilities

If we can get the technology right it is a win win situation

The first step

Review our main websites and get an idea of their accessibility and usability

First step was crude but effective

Raise peoples awareness

The moment of truth

Need to persuade

Circulated original videos to senior managers and website owners

Built inclusion website as a micro-site so we could carry out an accessibility audit

Showed that sites can be built in an accessible format and the benefits of an independent accreditation

bt.com review

Budget

Commissioned expert resource

Defined order journeys

Feedback

Snowball effect

External forces:A lot of publicity about inaccessible

website and some high profiles cases (mainly overseas)DDA awareness campaign around what organisations

should be doing Internal forces:

Continual push from the inclusion team to improve accessibility of all new websites

Promoted simple tools that people could use to test their sites

Simple tools

Wave accessibility toolbar for Firefox www.wave.webaim.org

WAT Web Accessibility Toolbar www.wat-c.org

Colour contrast analyserApplication built in to WAT

Access to a screen readerwww.satoga.com

Plus………..

Simple tools

Just using the keyboard to Navigate the site Using view - Text size – Largest Using the mouse to hover over a

picture and looking for the alt tag Checking the links to make sure they do not

all say the same thing Click Here Asking some of the users in BT with access

technology how it worked for them

Embedded into BAU

In the mean time…. BSL

We were asked by some of our stakeholder groups what we did for BSL users

Apart from keeping the language simple and clear - the answer was very little

So we teamed up with ITV Signpost to see what we could do……………

BSL……. phase1

BSL phase1……. what we learnt

Who should do the Signing

New signs needed

Background to be changed

Supporting text altered

People wanted more information

BSL……. phase2

Developed Statement Of Requirements (SOR) from phase 1

In partnership with new supplier AC2, added additional items– Put the site map under

each page– Use flash not movie files

(easy to enlarge)

• Whilst offering useful information people want the site to go a step further:

• Reporting faults• Placing orders• Accessing their bills

More integration with the main site needed

BSL phase2….. learnings

BSL…….. the next phase

Audio option “Talking” website

Audio option “Talking” website

Simple

No cost to customers

Secure

Potential to work with all BT Sites

Audio option “Talking” website

• Reviewed various models but liked :Browsealoud

– Worked on our internal and external sites– Liked text highlighting and “tickertape”– Piloted on btplc.com first as a CSR activity

A work in progress

Any Questions