Ensuring Digital Accessibility through Process and Policy

by Jonathan Lazar, Daniel Goldstein, Anne Taylor

Ensuring Digital Accessibility through Process and Policy provides readers with a must-have resource to digital accessibility from both a technical and policy perspective. Inaccessible digital interfaces and content often lead to forms of societal discrimination that may be illegal under various laws. This book is unique in that it provides a multi-disciplinary understanding of digital accessibility. The book discusses the history of accessible computing, an understanding of why digital accessibility is socially and legally important, and provides both technical details (interface standards, evaluation methods) and legal details (laws, lawsuits, and regulations). The book provides real-world examples throughout, highlighting organizations that are doing an effective job with providing equal access to digital information for people with disabilities. This isn t a book strictly about interface design, nor is it a book strictly about law. For people who are charged with implementing accessible technology and content, this book will serve as a one-stop guide to understanding digital accessibility, offering an overview of current laws, regulations, technical standards, evaluation techniques, as well as best practices and suggestions for implementing solutions and monitoring for compliance.

This combination of skills from the three authors law, technical, and research, with experience in both corporate, government, and educational settings, is unique to this book, and does not exist in any other book about any aspect of IT accessibility. The authors combination of skills marks a unique and valuable perspective, and provides insider knowledge on current best practices, corporate policies, and technical instructions. Together, we can ensure that the world of digital information is open to all users.



Learn about the societal and organizational benefits of making information technology accessible for people with disabilities
Understand the interface guidelines, accessibility evaluation methods, and compliance monitoring techniques, needed to ensure accessible content and technology.
Understand the various laws and regulations that require accessible technology
Learn from case studies of organizations that are successfully implementing accessibility in their technologies and digital content
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246 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2015

Reviews

[Tara L. Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A timely book, densely packed with helpful and eye-opening information. Whether you're a designer, a developer, personally vested, or you simply want to know more about making technology accessible to everyone, this is the best place to start.

[Don Mulder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat overreaching introduction to disabilities. The authors shined in covering the history of disability inventions but less so when soapboxing about disabilities and disability law around the world. The result is a book that is slightly outdated by publication time and a little dry. Early write-ups of the book on Amazon suggested it was for UXers looking to include accessible practices. It comes off as more of a dry textbook with very little practical application for UX.