Gage Pacifera - PNSQC 2025 presentation.pdf

"A Framework for Enterprise-Level Accessibility Management", presented at the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference in Portland, Oregon on October 14, 2025.

1. A framework for
Authors: Gage Pacifera, Ying Ki
Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference
October 14, 2025
Enterprise-Level
Accessibility Management

2. About Gage
Web design and dev for over 20 years
WordPress, ecommerce
Project management
Owner of Harmonic Northwest
Website accessibiilty auditing/remediation
Live in Port Townsend, WA

3. Maturity Models Accessibility Tools High Value Testing
PlanningRoles & Responsibilities
This Presentation

4. What will you take home?
Better understanding of various aspects of website
accessibility and how to approach managing it
Who does what?
Software options
A game plan for your organization

5. Importance of Accessibility
Access to information is a fundamental human right.
Making websites accessible to those with disabilities
often improves the user experience for those without
disabilities.

6. Compliance Standards
Focus on WCAG 2.1 AA and 2.2 AA

7. Maturity Models

8. Maturity Models
A way to assess level of sophistication for a process and
set goals for improvement

9. Capability Maturity Models
Initial

unpredictable, poorly
controlled, reactive
Defined

defined organizationally,
proactive
Optimizing

focused on
improvement
Managed

measured and
controlled
Repeatable

defined by project,
usually reactive
Applies to Processes

10. University of Arizona Maturity Model

11. W3C Accessibility Maturity Model
Communications
Culture
Information &
Communication Technology
Development Life Cycle
Knowledge & Sklls
Personnel
Procurement
Support
Applies maturity models across seven dimensions:

12. Roles and Responsibilities

13. Manager
Author QA IT
Acessibility
Expert
Designer Developer

14. Manager
Understand the importance
Be an advocate
Plan for accessibility
Procure budget and resources
Improve processes
Verify success

15. Accessibility
Expert
Design processes
Create training materials and train
Periodic audits
Review and improve processes

16. Designer
Author
Developer
Manage website code and content
Identify issues
Remediate issues
Handle the “hands-on” tasks

17. QA
Identify issues
Can find issues for any category of
accessibility they have been
trained on
Gold standard: QA person with
disability using assistive devices

18. IT
Support developers
Manage software
Provide support to software users

19. Who
Identifies
Accessibility
Issues?

20. Who Remediates Accessibility Issues?

21. Accessibility Tools

22. What functionality do tools provide?
Automated testing
Guides/checklists for manual testing
Track remediation lifecycle
Statistics
One-off tools for specific issues

(example: WebAIM online color contrast checker)
Simulate disabilities
Assistive technology

23. Software for
identifying and
remediating
accessibilty issues

24. Limitations of Automated Testing
Automation can only identify certain
classes of accessibility issues
Many accessibility issues require an
understanding of context that the current
suite of automated testing tools lack
EXAMPLE
Automated tests can identify images missing alt tags
Automated tests cannot reliably determine if alt text is accessible
(i.e. sufficiently descriptive, providing appropriate instructions, etc.)
of accessibility issues
cannot be reliably detected
by automated testing
~70%

25. Accessibility Planning
for Enterprise

26. Policy-level
planning
Project-level
planning
Components of your plan

27. Policies
Who is ultimately responsible
for ensuring that all online
properties within an
organization meet their goals?
For sites that are updated
regularly, how often should
accessibility audits be run
on a per role basis?
What documentation should
staff members use to help
them identify and remediate
accessibility issues?
How often
should
processes be
re-evaluated?
What tools will be used to
procure a comprehensive
checklist of potential
issues?
What tools will be used
to track the lifecycle of
issue identification and
remediation?
Who is
responsible
for setting
goals?
Who is
responsible for
reevaluating
processes?
What tools will be
used to perform
automated testing?
What are the
benchmarks for
reevaluating
processes?
What training should
various roles have and
how should that
training be delivered?
Who is the
accessibility
expert?
What
are our
goals?

28. Project Planning
Will this project follow all
of the general accessibility
policies and procedures?
Who is responsible for ensuring
this website meets the
project’s accessibility goals?
Who is responsible
for ensuring the
design of the website
is accessible?
Who is responsible for
ensuring that code-
related accessibility
issues are addressed?
Who is responsible
for running
automated tests?
Who is responsible for
running periodic manual
accessibility testing
related to design?
Who is responsible for
running periodic manual
accessibility testing
related to development?
Who is responsible for
running periodic manual
accessibility testing related
to content authoring?
What additional
training do assigned
staff members need
to fulfill their roles?
Who is responsible for ensuring
that the organization of
information, semantic structure and
written content are accessible?

29. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create polices
(goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create project
plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.



9.
10.

11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

30. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create
polices (goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create project
plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.



9.
10.

11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

31. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create polices
(goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create
project plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.



9.
10.

11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

32. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create polices
(goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create project
plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.



9.
10.

11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

33. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create polices
(goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create project
plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.



9.
10.

11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

34. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create polices
(goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create project
plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.



9.
10.

11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

35. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create polices
(goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create project
plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.



9.
10.

11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

36. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create polices
(goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create project
plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.



9.
10.

11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

37. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create polices
(goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create project
plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8
9.
.



10.

11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

38. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create polices
(goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create project
plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8
9.
10.

.



11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

39. Planning Example for a Company
Managers enlist accessibility expert
Expert and managers create polices
(goals, tools, tracking, etc.)
Expert and managers create project
plan
Team members receive training
Designer and marketing manager
create designs
Expert reviews designs,

Designer makes revisions
1.
2.

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.



9.
10.

11.
Development team codes site
Manual and automated testing is
run on staging site,

Development team makes
revisions
Launch site
Marketing manager continues to
update content
Site is periodically re-reviewed

40. High Value Testing:
Wide & Shallow + Narrow & Deep

41. Combination of Two Approaches
Wide and Shallow
Automated testing on
all or most pages
Manual testing on
select pages
Narrow and Deep

42. Narrow and Deep:
Criteria for Selecting Pages
High traffic
Similar structure to other pages
Haven’t been tested recently

43. A framework for
gagepacifera harmonicnw.com
These slides (slideshare.net)
http://bit.ly/48ZYRCB Thank you!
Enterprise-Level
Accessibility Management