AccessWorks - User Experience Testing and Document Remediation by and for People with Disabilities
Are you accessible? Businesses, schools and government agencies increasingly recognize the importance of designing and presenting information technology (IT) as accessibly as possible. In addition to meeting legal mandates, accessible IT improves search ratings, is adaptable to new formats, reaches larger audiences, and is in synch with other web standards. But there remains considerable confusion about how to meet accessiblity standards. Knowbility's AccessWorks program can help you create and maintain accessible web sites and documents with your organization. And when you engage with AccessWorks, you support the employment of people with disabilities who are hired and trained to provide accessiblity services.
What is AccessWorks?
AccessWorks is Knowbility's employment program. Our goal is to provide needed technology services to government agencies, schools and businesses that can be delivered by people with disabilities working from home or office. The program is a win-win for the community and for people with disabilities, including those with developmental disabilities and wounded veterans. AccessWorks provides people with disabilities with training that leads to meaningful, skilled employment that can be performed in a flexible setting and timefame that can be customized to meet individual needs.
What are the technology services provided by AccessWorks?
There are two components to the AccessWorks program:
- User Experience Testing - User testing and reporting that includes the experience of people with various visual, hearing, mobility and cognitive disabilities. Our Certified Professional Human Factors Engineers have experience that includes task and user needs analysis, competitive analysis, experimental design and statistics, and usability testing. People with disabilities are hired and paid for their participation in studies that provide you with inclusive user experience reports. Go beyond compliance and learn how people with disabilities experience your web site!
- Document Remediation - You know how to test and verify for the accessibility of your web site...what about your Office documents, inlcuding Word, Powerpoint, and Excel spreadsheets? what about PDF documents? audio and video content? AccessWorks can identify accessibility barriers and repair them so that your posted documents meet the legal requirements of many government insititutions and agencies and are fully accessible to all users.
Who are AccessWorks customers?
AccessWorks provides training, testing and remediation services to Texas. Oklahoma and California state agencies, to federal government agencies and to K-12 schools and universities. Among our clients are Harcourt School Publishing, Austin ISD, WebMD, Southern California Edison, the California State University System, the US Army and many many more. References can be provided on request.
Who are AccessWorks employees and what do they say?
AccessWorks employs eleven people with physical, cognitive and emotional disabilities referred through veteran's groups, state agencies and other organizations that advocate for equal opportunity. We have dozens of applications in the queue and are training and hiring people to do technology services work as quickly as we obtain contracts for those services. Among the comments submitted by current staff are these:
Desiree Sturdevant, Usability Experience Testing, blogger. "AccessWorks has given me so much! I love participating in the company goals that are not only extremely worthwhile, but beneficial to me as a technology user with a disability. I have gained a tremendous amount of experience that not only helps me perform my current job functions, but they will see me through future endeavors. I have learned so much by being a part of the AccessWorks team as a whole, and my growth in knowledge of technology and its potential and use to me has been incredible..."
Anneka Griffith, Program Intern. Thanks to my job at AccessWorks I have been given the chance to live on my own and have prepared me to work in an office environment. Through Knowbility, not only do I have a steady paycheck coming in I also have my school payed for by them and my health benefits payed for. I depend on this job completely for my lively hood..."
Where can I get more information?
Complete this contact form for companies that need services if your company will support employment of people with disabilities for user testing or remediation if you would like to learn more about service offerings.
Complete this employment inquiry form if you are a person with a disability interested in working as a user experience tester or a document remediation specialist.
How is AccessWorks funded?
AccessWorks is a fee-for-service program through which a portion of the program expenses are paid through the fees charged to clients. However, the identification, training and preparation of people with disabilities for employment is supported by a grant from the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities. Knowbility is grateful for their support.
Together we are building online community that works for everyone!
Knowbility's training and employment programs have been nationally-recognized for excellence by CompTIA, the US Labor Department, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Peter Drucker Foundation among many others.