Overview
Whoever said a leopard can't change its spots, clearly never met the team of executives, account managers, art directors, designers, production specialists, writers and editors at Leopard, a business-to-business marketing agency in Broomfield, CO. For the OglivyOne subsidiary that works with companies across the IT industry, client satisfaction isn't just lip service, it's absolutely fundamental to the way they do business. "It's part of our culture. When a client tells us they need something, we take it to heart—we feel compelled to deliver on it," says Brendan Hemp, vice president of Creative Services at Leopard.
In this case what IBM needed, was internal marketing professionals and external supporting agencies to acquire the skills to produce marketing collateral and other deliverables that could be accessed by the widest range of clients and prospects, including people with disabilities and mature consumers. The requirement is based on a corporate instruction (CI 162) issued by the company that directs IBM operating organizations and subsidiaries to make all new IBM hardware and software products, Internet systems and Web sites, product documentation, and internal tools and applications accessible.
So when the Human Ability and Accessibility Center put out the word that it was offering specialized training to help marketing professionals and agencies meet IBM requirements for accessible marketing deliverables, the client team at Leopard was one of the first to sign up. "Our client satisfaction correlates with how well we respond to these kinds of requests," said Hemp. "The training was informative and provided a good starting point for a larger initiative. We liked the concept of being more inclusive and finding new ways to communicate to a broader spectrum of people."
The Leopard team not only attended the series of teleconferences and Web-based training, but took the information back to executives, who formed a task force to determine the best way to ferret out what they still didn't know about accessible design, and integrate accessibility into the agency's workflow. Initially, according to Hemp, the biggest hurdle was figuring out what the team already knew, identifying skill and information gaps, and determining how industry experts could help provide training.
Ultimately, Leopard collaborated not only with IBM, but also brought in a team from Adobe® to consult on accessibility techniques for specific design software including, Adobe InDesign®, Adobe Acrobat®, and Adobe Flash®. After learning more about design principles that help enable greater accessibility of marketing deliverables—such as providing appropriate color contrast for people with low vision and Alt-text for graphics that supports screen readers for people who are blind—Leopard mapped out a complete integration strategy.
The new strategy involved refining design templates to help facilitate the accessibility of future deliverables and increase efficiency over time, as well as getting specific about what steps needed to be added across the workflow, from design and production to quality control. The company also developed its own education materials and training presentations to help current and prospective employees learn the fundamentals of accessible design.
"For us, it was about a six month process because we were committed to doing it right," said Hemp. Today, Leopard assigns editors to assess the accessibility of its deliverables using screen readers, and to verify that the right elements are in place for each piece. Solving challenges associated with interactive media content, like Flash and complex Microsoft PowerPoint® builds has become a team effort. Designers incorporate non-mousing tab controls and according to Hemp everyone at Leopard, "thinks a lot more about how we're telling the story and how people can jump from chapter to chapter. If we can't fix the issue, we'll often produce both an interactive and accessible version that can be used by IBM."
While Leopard's broad accessibility integration strategy didn't happen overnight, it seems that once in place, the new processes did not dramatically impact the agency's workflow. In fact, Hemp contends that though they originally thought it might take as much as 30 percent longer to create accessible deliverables, the new processes only add about 5 percent to production time. Overall aesthetics of marketing deliverables were also minimally impacted. "In a few instances we had to tweak color contrast, but the final deliverables do not look noticeably different. Clearly one of the things we've learned is that accessibility doesn't need to affect good design, it just makes media and content usable for more people," he said.
As they've progressed through their accessibility journey, Leopard has shared insights gained from the IBM training, new tips and techniques, and lessons learned with colleagues at OgilvyOne. That collaborative approach to learning about accessibility is something Hemp would like to see extended across the marketing and advertising industries. "We're looking forward to the next generation of software and tools to support accessible design," he said. "But learning about accessibility is an ongoing process and it's tough to find professionals who really understand what's involved. Ideally, what the industry needs are wikis or other collaborative online environments that enable designers, editors, and other content developers to share expertise in a collaborative way."
From the perspective of Ben Kempner, marketing program director for the Human Ability and Accessibility Center, that's just the kind of creative thinking IBM is looking for. "Leopard is an excellent example of what's possible when a company makes a tops-down commitment to accessibility," he says. "IBM is actively developing applications, interfaces, and tools like IAccessible2 and the Accessibility Tools Framework to make accessibility easier for both software and content developers. And we're committed to being a cross-industry resource for accessibility knowledge and lessons learned. When companies like Leopard use that information to make accessibility part of the way they do business and begin thinking collaboratively, everybody wins. Both content and the technology we use to access it becomes more usable for everyone."