Demonstrating your commitment to Diversity & Inclusion
with ISO 30071-1

When people mention ISO, often eyes glaze over, thinking of yet more checklists.

The ISO 30071-1 Standard is different.

Over the 9 years I spent collaborating across the globe to build the Standard for digital inclusion, we wanted to codify the steps to make the cultural changes necessary to embed inclusive design into the heart of organisations.

It is about thinking about the motivation, responsibilities, policies and procedures to place the needs of people with impairments at the core of digital products, and make sure suppliers also deliver to your promise.

It’s not just about checking colours on a web-page. We have WCAG for that.

Signature of Jonathan Hassell

Jonathan Hassell,
Lead Author of ISO 30071-1
& CEO of Hassell Inclusion

A clear demonstration
of your commitment

If your organisation is publicly committing to including disability in Diversity and Inclusion, then embarking on the journey to become ISO 30071-1 Ready is a clear demonstration of that commitment.

Designed to be global or local, it means you can start with one project or division and scale with it, or you can use it as the foundation for your global programme.

It can be the glue of a Digital Accessibility Programme, a banner to differentiate you in proposals & bids, and the substance behind an inclusion message to encourage customers, employees, and prospective hires.

To help you understand ISO 30071-1, we put the Standard into practical plain English in our two books: Making Accessible Organisations and Making Accessible Products.

However, getting external support during your accessibility maturity journey can provide fresh eyes, fresh ideas, and augment your own activities and skills.

3 stages to becoming ISO 30071-1 Ready

When you’re building a new house, do you need an architect or just the building code inspector?

Our 3 stages to get to ISO 30071-1 work with you in collaboration to scope and shape a budgeted plan that meets the priorities and speed of your organisation, supports you in bridging the gaps, and then assesses you against the Standard.

  1. Digital Accessibility Maturity Benchmark. This provides an external verification of where your organisation is with respect to accessibility maturity, and we jointly build a practical budgeted action plan to fill in the gaps between that and full best-practice. In addition, we run a competitor review, and benefits of digital accessibility workshop, so your leadership team know why this matters to your specific organisation, what they can win by focusing on it, and how they compare with their peers and competitors.
  2. Bridging the Gaps. This is the core work to get the organisation ISO 30071-1 compliant, covering updates to organisational policies and procedures, procurement, development processes and training, plus embedding this on the creation of multiple digital products.
  3. ISO 30071-1 Ready Assessment. This follows up the benchmark, by verifying that documentation, processes, procedures embed and deliver digital accessibility and verify this with interviews and project reviews.

These 3 stages help the organisation show that it is ISO 30071-1 Ready, in preparation for any local country ISO accredited examiner to verify.

How should I start?

We developed our free Digital Accessibility Maturity Scorecard to help organisations do a rapid self-assessment and start the conversation about where current gaps are, for getting commitment to progress on your journey to the Standard. Please do have a go, invite colleagues, and use the resulting report to chat about what the results could mean for you.

How can digital accessibility help you meet your business goals? What’s your ISO 30071-1 Digital Accessibility Maturity Score?

If you don’t know where you are, how can you plan for where you’re going?

Based on the new Standard ISO 30071-1, discover your organisations’s Digital Accessibility Maturity score today using our free Scorecard, to:

  • gain clarity on where the gaps are in your accessibility practices,
  • receive personalised advice based on your result on how to improve your score in each of 9 dimensions of accessibility maturity, and
  • stop wasting your time and money focusing on the wrong things…

 

Find your score