Description

A maturity model for digital accessibility was originally developed by our team for universities. It serves as an analysis tool that allows the universities to measure their ability to implement digital accessibility across all areas of the institution. Based on the results, the institutions learn about the next steps to achieve a higher level of digital accessibility.

The aim of our current project is to adapt this analysis tool to another organization. This meets the organization’s need for an approach to improving accessibility, while being more cost-effective than developing a new maturity model. At the same time, the project serves as a feasibility study, exploring if and how an existing maturity model can be transferred to organizations with different structures.

To this end, we have divided the project into 3 phases:

Phase 1a:
We first developed interview questions, ensuring that they covered relevant aspects of day-to-day tasks, workflows, and the overarching structure of the targeted organization. We then conducted interviews with at least one representative from all departments of the institution. This enabled us to gain a general understanding of the company.

Phase 1b:
The information from Phase 1a was used to create an organigram by summarizing the tasks, workflows, internal and external collaborations, and key challenges. This visualizes the structures of the institution.

Phase 2a:
In this phase, we used an existing pool of accessibility indicators originally compiled to design the maturity model for universities. It was created by collecting indicators from various accessibility maturity models for different domains, including higher education, businesses, and other fields.

The indicator pool was reviewed systematically. Indicators that were not applicable to the organization, because they refer to processes that do not exist in this specific institution (as identified in Phase 2), were removed.

Phase 2b:
We then selected suitable indicators for the targeted organization from this pool. The organigram from Phase 1b was used in this process. By assigning indicators to specific areas of the organigram, we were able to identify potential structures for the adapted maturity model, such as organizing dimensions by departments or processes. This step also revealed gaps, i.e., processes in the organization for which no existing indicators were suitable. In these cases, new indicators were developed.

Phase 3:
In a next step, four levels of accessibility will be defined for each indicator. We will also define the transitions between these levels, including recommendations for actions to achieve a higher level.

With the finished maturity model, the institution will be able to assess itself and measure its levels of accessibility at regular intervals. As a result, the analysis tool will create a network diagram that shows how accessibility is already being implemented in the different departments. Recommendations for actions to improve accessibility will be issued based on the results.

The existing maturity model for universities serves as an inspiration throughout the adaptation process. We draw from the experiences gained by our team during the development by replicating successful approaches. We also use the completed model as a guide for designing the new model, including decisions about the number and structure of dimensions, indicators, and levels. Where applicable, we directly adopt relevant components of the original model without modification.

Reflection of the current phase 1: The quality of the content of the interviews varied, which was reflected in the relevance and structure of the answers given. In some cases, the questions were not answered directly, resulting in information that was unrelated to the topic or of little use.

The final presentation will provide a brief review of all phases, but at the moment phase 2 is not yet complete.

Presenter

Luisa Lutz, Lisa-Marie Nohl, Patricia Piskorek