Some people think having accessible websites is like having a swimming pool. Nice to have, but too expensive and too much upkeep. Unlike a swimming pool, however, an accessible website means that anyone can view it whatever their limitation, ranging from a physical limitation like limited or no eyesight, to having a handheld device with small display.

John Rochford, Director of Technology at New England INDEX a project of UMass Medical School, is one of those people who takes accessibility seriously and makes websites better for everyone. Talance has been working with Rochford and his team on the online training component for an initiative called Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). It’s a major undertaking that aims to streamline and coordinate how healthcare providers work with each other and patients.

Monique Cuvelier, Talance’s CEO, asked Rochford about his work in accessibility, his biggest headaches and his proudest moment.

Monique Cuvelier: I think a lot of people who care about accessibility have a compelling reason to do so. What’s the driving force behind your involvement in accessibility?

John Rochford: The driving force for me is the result of the combination and the evolution of two of my passions. One is for computer technology. The other is for helping people with intellectual disabilities. My professional career started in the mid-1980s with a succession of jobs serving people with intellectual disabilities. During that time, people shunned computer geeks like me. Yet the people I served embraced me. That they are such an open, friendly, and accepting people has always been heartwarming to me.

In the early 1990s, I sought a graduate degree at The Shriver Center for research, training and service related to intellectual disabilities. It has a project, New England INDEX, which provides free information about programs and services for people with disabilities residing in Massachusetts. All of the software INDEX designed at the time for that purpose was as accessible to people with disabilities as we could make it.

I started to extend our software to the web in the mid-1990s. Since then, I have designing websites as accessible as technology and funding have allowed, and as best as my developing expertise could make them.

MC: What does a typical accessibility test or process look like for you?

JR: We start by building accessible web applications. This makes it much less costly to fix accessibility issues, and much easier to test for related deficiencies. We use automated testing software to check for problems across a website. We have also used assistive technology products in our testing. A good example is that we make sure all our web sites are compatible with screen reader software for people who are blind. Most importantly, we have people with disabilities test our web sites.

MC: What kind of digital media are ignored the most with accessibility?

JR: All digital media (e.g., videos, music, etc.) are natively inaccessible. Only a tiny percentage of websites are helpful to people with disabilities by incorporating accessible media players and/or by providing alternative, accessible content. An accessible media player, for example, provides controls (e.g., play, pause) that work with screen readers so people who are blind can use them. Such controls are also good for people with physical disabilities who may not be able to use a mouse.

The National Center for Accessible Media is a good resource about accessible digital media. For many years, we have used on our websites its ccPlayer, an accessible media player, and its captioning services for our video content.

MC: What’s the single biggest rule people should follow to make pages accessible?

JR: Make sure people with disabilities test a website and every version of it.

MC: What’s your biggest accessibility headache?

JR: My most significant challenge is convincing people to make their websites accessible. I find it appalling that I have to work to convince the staff of organizations, which serve people with disabilities, to make their sites accessible. What people do not realize is that an accessible website is easier to use for everyone, which is always good for business.

MC: What was your proudest moment in accessibility?

JR: It occurred early in my career after I installed speech recognition software for a young woman. I was showing her how to use it instead of a keyboard and a mouse, which she could not use. She cried as she told me it was the first time she would be able to write a letter to her mother. I consider that achievement of hers to be the special one.

What Our Clients Value Most

We at Talance team think of ourselves as just as cuddly and welcoming as a Tickle Me Elmo, but that’s not really what counts. What counts is that YOU think so too. We also think it’s important to know what you want, where we can improve, what could make Talance a better company, and thus, what could make you a better organization.

So, we asked. Last month we sent out a customer satisfaction survey to our existing clients, offered up a Starbucks gift card for one lucky respondent (WTG, Ellen!) and hoped that you think as kindly about us as we do about you. We also followed up on a few particularly compelling responses via a market researcher to see how we might address your needs better.

The results? In a word, amazing.

Survey Highlights

Our survey yielded an impressive 57% response rate, which made us extremely grateful and tipped us off that we have a healthy relationship with our clients.

The results and comments made us fairly glow. Every single respondent said they would consider us for a new project.

Furthermore, we’ve got some major cheerleaders out there. Everyone said they would recommend us to their contacts.

We received some excellent suggestions regarding the services we offer and are already acting on folding in some of those services.

Our clients overwhelmingly indicated that what we do makes life easier for them – and we rock with deadlines.

Where We Excel

Because we work online and think it’s useful to visualize data, we took all the comments from our survey and created a tag cloud out of them. The theory was that we could see at a glance what people associate with us most strongly. The results are fascinating, and heartening, so we’re sharing them with you here. Click the image below to open a larger copy in a new window.

Talance's Value (Click To Enlarge)

[This appeared in our March newsletter. Wanna subscribe? Do it now!]

I’ve yet to work with a client who doesn’t use the word “welcoming” in some way to describe the website they want. No doubt that goes for just about anyone reading this article right now. In fact, most people will spend considerable thought and effort coming up with the best open-looking fonts, the friendliest text, the warmest colors when it comes to designing a website or online course, all in the service of being more appealing to their audience. For this, I commend them.

But you can’t really be selectively welcoming. “Welcome,” by definition means everybody, not cherry-picking the people who are the easiest to accommodate. It means you need to make your website accessible. It also happens to be a legal requirement for many states who have to comply with Section 508.

So your job – if you’re serious about welcoming – is to make sure your website appears for everybody, no matter if they’re using an iPad, have low vision or some other disability that prevents them from using your website as you intended.

Where to start? An accessibility evaluation is the best place. Talance works with many government clients who are required to follow Section 508 accessibility rules, so we can give your site a thorough evaluation. Contact us for information.

You can also improve your website’s accessibility by running it through one of these free tools. They’ll give you a handful of items you can fix yourself, as well as a solid notion of what to take to a web company to address. Try any or all of these:

Wave

Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility

Functional Accessibility Evaluator

WebAIM Section 508 Checklist

Want more? Talance can provide expert web accessibility evaluation and consulting to pinpoint problems and provide specific recommendations. Contact us for information.

Announcing the new Brockton Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program logo:

Brockton Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program Logo

BTPPP is an organization in Brockton, MA, that aims to reduce teen pregnancy rates. They needed a new logo for web and print that would appeal to teens as well as their mentors.

Talance delivered! The new logo is modern and abstract but still demonstrates health and wellness, rather than sex, and inclusiveness.

It could be a punishing snowstorm that brings down power for weeks. It could be a hacker that vandalizes your website. Or a war-torn country that inhibits communication with your team. It might even be as simple as a data backup that stops running for some reason. Running an organization with an online element is inherently risky, yet few leaders think seriously about what those risks might be and how they might affect day-to-day operations.

Earlier this month in the blog, we talked about how non-profits should think about IT risk management when they have an online element to their organization.

But how do you create an IT risk management plan? Start with these four steps:

1.     Identify possible risks.

First think of all the forms of electronic communication you use, and brainstorm together some worst case scenarios. What could possibly go wrong? Write them down.

2.     Categorize and prioritize.

Now look at your list and decide which is the most potentially damaging. You might rank the risks by Low, Medium and High, so you can decide where to put your most careful plan.

3.     Determine plausibility.

Some of the items on your list are more likely to happen than others, even if they’re damaging. An earthquake might flatten your off-site storage facility, but is it likely to happen in the middle of Utah? Rank your items based on plausibility: Possible, Probable and Likely are helpful labels.

4.     Make your plan.

Now you have a good idea of what could go wrong and the likelihood it will. Think through each item and plot out what you would do in case it happens. Will your web project manager quit?  Have a good staffing agency on call. Did you delete your website’s homepage? Have your web host on speed dial so they can revert to the latest backup. Write down every step so anyone can pick up the plan and know what to do.

Educated plans are the best, so don’t shy from asking others what they might do. Plan within your department, and call in colleagues and other professionals for their advice.

Your turn: do you assess risk? Let us know in our poll if you have a risk management plan for your organization. We’ll share the results in our next newsletter. Take the poll!

[This appeared in our February newsletter. Wanna subscribe? Do it now!]

Introducing the NCJPS Website

Every website launch is a celebration, and today we’re tipping our glasses to the brand new National Center for Jewish Policy Studies (NCJPS) website.

The NCJPS is a nonpartisan think-tank publishes on topics of concern to the Jewish community, including synagogues in Jewish life, vouchers for religious schools and interfaith marriage. The website is a place for supporters to learn about research, consultations, conferences and scholarly publications.

Talance is proud to help communicate this organization’s mission. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing to the new National Center for Jewish Policy Studies website.

Come learn about ATutor, Blackboard and other learning management systems during a panel discussion at the Boston chapter of the American Society for Training & Development. The meeting is Jan. 18, 2011, from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. in Newton, MA.

Here’s the overview from the ASTD:

The first part [of the meeting] is Tech Talk, featuring Shawn Stiles, providing an overview of Lectora. In this presentation, Shawn will discuss Lectora, a popular development tool. His presentation will be an overview of the product including costs, competitors, why he likes this product as well as some pros and cons. He’ll also cover a brief how-to demonstration and end by showing the final product, live and on-line.

The second part of the evening will be an interactive panel discussion with several LMS expert, sharing and comparing their insights on specific LMS tools. LMS experts will be covering discussions on products from Learn.com (Shannon Courtney), Blackboard (David Rosenbaum), ATutor (Monique Cuvelier) as well as others.

Location: Rebecca’s Cafe 275 Grove Street, Auburndale, MA 02459, 617-969-3382. For those who have not been to this Rebecca’s location, it is very easy to miss as you will not see a sign for Rebecca’s from the street. 275 Grove St. is the Riverside Office Park, right next to the Riverside MBTA train and bus stop. Rebecca’s is located at the back of the building, by the parking garage.

See you there!

2001 to 2011 and Beyond

When I was a kid, I thought the relativity of time had something to do with how it sometimes flew by, and other times it crept along (like my trip to Disneyland at 10 vs. my entire school education grades K-12). I’m hardly any brighter about physics now, but it still seems the last 10 years have passed by both in a blur, and also slow enough for a tremendous amount to have happened.

It was just after New Year’s Day in 2001 that we officially launched Talance, handling software development, writing copy and managing projects. Every year has been absolutely packed, but we’ve been marching steadily toward our goal of being a friendly, dependable technical resource for nonprofits and government agencies.

I’m happy to say that on the days when I have time to look up, I feel like we’re doing it. We’ve started new initiatives (print design), built up some of our cornerstones (e-learning and web development) and meet clients that feel more like friends. We’re working together to evolve in a space that’s changing so fast it’ll give you whiplash if you watch (ahem, social media).

Rather than making this a 10-year retrospective, I’d like to look forward. It’s much more useful to think about where we’ll be 10 years from today rather than the other way around. Where’s the progress in that? I don’t know what the technological landscape will look like (did anyone expect to be here back in 2000?), so we’ll bundle up our collective experience and move forward on a clear open road, equipped for twists and turns.

I know that wherever we are, it’ll be built on a foundation of expertise and helpfulness. Thanks to the clients who work with us and thanks to all the developers, designers, testers, writers and all other people who have helped make Talance what it is.

Here’s to the next decade.

Monique Cuvelier
CEO
Talance, Inc.

We’re not naming names, but we hear a lot of crazy requests when it comes to building websites. The worst are those that utterly disregard what the poor visitors have to contend with when they look at the site. Read these quotes, and do exactly the opposite.

[This appeared in our December newsletter. Wanna subscribe?]

Top 10 Most Ridiculous Web Design Requests of 2010

1. Can you please make that tab say [insert any 10 or more words here]?
2. We need this website built yesterday.
3. Can you create sub-sub-sub menus?
4. Put everything on the homepage so no one has to search for anything.
5. Half of our committee hates green, the other half hates blue, so just make it gray.
6. I know we’re ready to launch, but the CEO doesn’t think the site is “user friendly.” He’d like you to rebuild it so it looks like this [insert here schematic created solely from the rectangle tool on PowerPoint].
7. Can you make all the menu items open in a new window?
8. Can you make us #1 on Google?
9. Make the logo 200% bigger.
10. Can you copy this other site? We want ours to look exactly the same.

Overhauling the way Massachusetts’ medical practices deal with patients is no simple task. Not when you’re considering coordinating all of a patient’s health needs, including managing chronic conditions, handling visits to specialists, dealing with hospital admissions and reminding patients when they need check-ups and tests. Add to it archaic systems that involve stacks of paper medical records and rows of filing cabinets in doctors’ offices.

Many doctors deal with patients’ various medical issues by writing a referral and then maybe hearing about what happened at yearly check-up time.

The Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Health and Human Services hopes to fundamentally change the way medical practices work with the Patient-Centered Medical Home Initiative. The 3-year demonstration project is part online and part in-person. Participants, which include 46 primary care medical practices, receive live coaching from facilitators, help establishing and maintaining patient registries and extensive training through a learning collaborative, managed by e-learning technical provider Talance, Inc. (http://talance.com/elearning).

The program involves all types of doctors in every corner of the state, including large, urban community health centers and small, rural group practices. Even in a state as small as Massachusetts, where it’s possible to drive from one end to the other – the long way – in a few hours, it’s still a challenge to train a broad range of practices at the same time. That’s why it’s vital for the project to incorporate online learning as a way to help manage the project.

In many cases, e-learning is the only way to effectively push health care management shifts. It’s an industry that naturally drifts toward in-person connection, where doctors talk to people face-to-face in examination rooms. When it comes to reforming office administration on such a large scale, that model won’t work. It’s the reason that 37 percent of training hours involved electronic technology in 2009, according to Alexandria, Va.-based American Society for Training and Development.

E-learning may be key in conforming to the Obama administration’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), which passed in 2009. Providers will have to adopt health information technology (HIT) starting in 2011, a requirement that includes more than $36 billion in incentive payments to reward providers whose electronic medical records (EMRS) meet the government’s test of “meaningful use”.

The end result is overall cost savings.

“At the heart of our effort to ensure access to care is a commitment to strengthening primary care and reforming how we pay for that care,” said Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. JudyAnn Bigby. “This new initiative is one of the key building blocks in our strategic work to make all primary care practices in Massachusetts transformed into advanced patient-centered medical homes by 2015.”

The Patient-Centered Medical Home Initiative (PCMHI) was designed by the Executive Office of Health and Human Services in consultation with a multi-payer, multi-stakeholder council of consumer, physician, nurse practitioner, hospital, insurer, state agency and other interested stakeholder representatives. The Council is co-chaired by Secretary Bigby and Dr. John Fallon, Senior Vice President and Chief Physician Executive at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.