Who cares about accessibility?

13:10-13:40, Lecture Room 1

I work HMH, one of America’s biggest publishers with an Ed-tech business serving 150 million students and teachers. You may not have heard of us but you will know some of our brands: Curious George, Carmen Santiago, The Hobbit. It’s not too much of a stretch to say we’re a big company but until recently saying that we cared about accessibility was as far as it went.

How does a big company (or a small one) change track, retrofit existing apps and start making accessibility a core part of future plans? How do you get developers and designers, who are already under time constraints to start thinking differently? Is it even realistic to think we this can be done without blowing the budget, delaying the product or getting so tied up in the red tape of legal specifications that nothing ever gets done?

The answer to all of the above is yes and if you give me 30 minutes I’ll tell attendees how they can do it too because the answer should be that everyone cares about accessibility but sometimes developers need practical advice to make that a reality.