1. Eating the Elephant Part Two:
The First Year of an Enterprise
Web Accessibility Program
Elle Waters
February 2012

2. What We Will Cover:
1. Background
2. Quick Review of Eating the Elephant Part One
3. Pillars and Philosophies of a Web Accessibility Program
4. A Mini-Case Study: Humana-Medicare.com Redesign
5. A Mini-Case Study: Humana AEP Marketing Campaign
6. Looking Towards the Future: Program Growth
7. Lessons Learned from Year One
2

3. Background
3

4. Humana
• Fortune 100 company with over 30,000 employees
• Serves over 11 million customers
• Currently has over 140 web properties
• Is consumer focused
• Has an innovative digital culture that drives improvements in user
experience and engagement
• Has an evolving business model (more on that later)
4

5. Deque
• Founded in 1999
• Privately held company focused on web accessibility
• Provides accessibility solutions to Fortune 1000 companies
• Provides web accessibility consulting and software
• Employs software professionals who are also persons with disabilities
• Participant in global standards bodies
• US Federal Government Access Board
• NFB - National Federation of the Blind
• W3C/ WAI
• United Nations
5

6. Highlights from
Eating the Elephant Part One:
Winning the Business Case
for a Web Accessibility Program
6

7. 2010: Challenges Faced and Benefits Enjoyed
Challenges:
•Lack of centralized infrastructure
•Unscalable process
•Institutional complexity (like most large organizations)
Benefits:
•Large Medicare customer base
•Consumer focus
•Progressive corporate culture
•Flexible roles
7

8. Risk Analysis and the Enterprise Road Map
To identify where our customer’s biggest needs were and
where our highest risks were, we needed
We also needed a road map and business case for executive
leadership.
So, of course we went to Austin.
8

9. Risk Analysis and the Enterprise Road Map – in Austin
9

10. Risk Analysis and the Enterprise Road Map – @ Humana
10

11. The Accessibility Road Show
1
Meet with each and every change
agent, department supervisor, and
executive leader.
2
Identify key areas where accessibility
can be a solution to other challenges
in the organization.
3
Repeat steps 1 and 2.
“Accessibility is a part of doing business,
it’s keeping the lights on.”
Source: Senior Director in Humana’s Digital Group
11

12. Pillars and Philosophies of a
Web Accessibility Program
12

13. The Five Pillars of a Web Accessibility Program
(via Derek Featherstone)
PLANNING POLICY PROCESS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROCUREMENT
13

14. Program Building for Year One: First Things First
Decision Point:
What do we want to be –
a cabbage or an oak tree?
14

15. Growing a Cabbage
Benefits:
•Quick measurable results
•Greater visibility into program development
•Scalable annual goals
•Responsive to immediate needs
Examples:
•Individual site remediation
•Accessibility educational workshops
•Focus on fixing critical violations
15

16. Growing an Oak Tree
Benefits:
•Multi-year strategy
•Measurable progress at a macro scale
•Foundation for long term success
Examples:
•Training modules for IT learning platform
•New development standards
•Creation of UX design pattern library
•Creation of code library
16

17. How about both? Or something else entirely…
Let’s be an apple tree instead:
•Return measurable results on a select group of
initiatives
•Address the most critical user needs
•Target pain points strategically, building the
foundation for long term results
•Develop a multi-year strategy with the flexibility to
change annually
17

18. How about both? Or something else entirely…
What else does this combined strategy give us?
•Provides valuable lessons from smaller mistakes that
will improve our long term strategy
•Creates a momentum from quick wins
with employees that reinforces long term sustainability
•Allows you to think big by aligning to long term
enterprise goals
•Introduces game changing innovation
18

19. A Mini-Case Study:
Humana-Medicare.com
Redesign
19

20. Humana-Medicare.com Redesign
• Business factors
• Medicare audience
• Extensive usability testing
• Definitive deadline of October 1st
• Development factors
• Agile environment with iterative design and development
• ASP.NET 3.5
• Combination of off-shore and on-shore development teams
• No former training in accessibility other than a single-day workshop
20

21. Humana-Medicare.com Redesign
• To get a seat at the table
• Accessibility budget funded 50% of the overall
project
• Allowed to create structure, process, validation
requirements to meet accessibility standards
21

22. Humana-Medicare.com Redesign: Method 1
Method 1:
Full accessibility requirements with no changes to the current development process
•Handed the scrum team a full list of success criteria, based on Humana’s internal accessibility
standards (HAUS)
•Delivered detailed wireframes and Photoshop files
Method 1 Results: Project Went to Yellow
•Multiple browser and W3C failures
•Met very few success criteria
•In one month we spent 10% of the overall project budget in development costs
“This costs too much!” “It’s [business] [IT] [design] [that guy]’s fault.”
22

23. “This was a terrible idea!”
23

24. Humana-Medicare.com Redesign: Method 2
Method 2 Approach:
Progressive enhancement with phased requirements and process changes
•Validation checks at each phase during QA testing
•Automated check using WAVE for Phase 1
•Spreadsheet with success criteria for HAUS for Phase 2
•Spreadsheet with success criteria for HAUS for Phase 3
•Boilerplate story templates written in VersionOne
24

25. Humana-Medicare.com Redesign: Method 2
Method 2 Results:
•Results were somewhat better but the project was still slowed down
•The project was still in yellow
•The developers were demoralized seeing a list of failures each sprint
•Overwhelming need for usable training
“We’re just not ready to do this at an enterprise level.”
“This takes too long!”
“Isn’t accessibility really an aspirational goal instead of a real one?”
25

26. Intermission
So, is excellence really scalable?

27. Humana-Medicare.com Redesign: Method 3
Method 3 Approach:
Progressive enhancement with Embedded Developer model
•Took an accessibility expert ASP.NET developer and embedded her in the team
•Attended daily standups
•Participated in two-week sprints
•Answered daily emails
•Provided source code examples
•Tested solutions on developers’ local workstations
27

28. Humana-Medicare.com Redesign
Method 3 Results:
•Stories closed faster
•The project was back in green!
•Learning was contextual and therefore memorable
•Developers morale increased - no more hand slapping by business in QA
During the six-week period that our embedded developer was with the team,
overall development costs went down 35%. When the embedded developer
model engagement ended, we still saw extended benefits of the training with our
development teams. The good work carried on!
… until we got a new team of developers to finish the project.
New issues were introduced with the change in teams. To account for this, we
completed the project using multiple audits in QA and Production until the issues
were resolved.
28

29. Humana-Medicare.com Redesign
What are some things I would have done differently?
•Engaged with our accessibility vendor to install our embedded developer earlier and for a
longer period of time (cost beneficial)
•Gotten a commitment from our IT management that the developers would not cycle through to
different projects until this one had completed
•Kept a closer eye on the end of the development project (there is no such thing as auto pilot at
this point in our program) instead of seeing earlier success as a guaranteed measure of
continued success
29

30. A Mini-Case Study:
Humana AEP Marketing
Campaign
30

31. Humana AEP Marketing Campaign
Business factors:
•Create and execute a multi-channel, single minded campaign
•Extend the “Relationships” campaign story into the digital world making it powerful and
enhancing the everyday aspects of seniors’ lives
•Connect families and extend relationships across channels in the digital realm, moving from
single relationships to a family reunion theme
Development factors:
•Multiple teams (5 digital agencies, 3 development teams)
•A rapidly developed microsite with several content launches over 4 months
•Heavy social media focus
•Accessibility as a core requirement
31

32. Humana AEP Marketing Campaign
Microsite
32

33. Humana AEP Marketing Campaign
Facebook page with a Family Tree Application
33

34. Humana AEP Marketing Campaign
YouTube videos on microsite and YouTube.com
34

35. Humana AEP Marketing Campaign
Success!
Marketing Wins:
•This year’s program outperformed last year’s results relative to attributable application conversions, generating
95% more applications than last year
•The microsite had a higher CTA interaction rate than the main website
Accessibility Wins:
•No delays - iterative manual audits provided almost real-time feedback for teams
•Accessibility was the primary connection point that standardized the process
•Accessible design, development, testing, support and innovation for all segments of the campaign cost
approximately 6% of the overall campaign budget
•The project and enthusiasm surrounding it provided opportunities for innovation with accessibility:
• Humana Video Player
• HTML5 (iOS) Facebook Family Tree application
• Accessibility Injection (client-side at run time)
35

36. It Ain’t Easy Being Green…
The culture shift at a corporation can be
as small and as significant as a hex value.

37. Looking Toward the Future:
Program Growth
37

38. Looking Toward the Future: Program Growth
Looking Towards the Future for Program Growth
•Humana is shifting its focus as an organization health and well-being brand.
•We want consumer and member interactions to be a seamless and engaging experience.
•Members should feel empowered towards a self-service model of health and wellness, where the
user experience is easy.
IDE (Integrated Digital Experience)
•65 Humana web properties consolidated into one in 2 years
•Single technology platform with MVC design pattern
•Integrating accessibility as a core requirement
•We want to become champions for the user
38

39. Lessons Learned from Year 1
39

40. Lessons Learned from Year 1
• Be a solution to someone else’s problem
• Find allies and support them
• The campaigning doesn’t end
• Always look for new opportunities
• Accessibility IS beautiful design
• That which can be codified should be codified
• Get in early, adjust often
• Go big or go home
• Don’t worry, it’s much harder than you think
• It’s bigger than you think… much bigger
• It’s worth it
40

41. Thank you.
41