With nearly 20 percent of the worldwide population currently coping with some type of disability, the development of products, documentation, Websites, and services that are accessible to the disabled is an important issue for our industry.
Laws and regulations on accessibility have been introduced in many countries. In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities and requires companies to accommodate their needs. Section 255 of the U.S. Telecommunications Act requires manufacturers and service providers to make their products and services accessible to people with disabilities.
Many of our customers are affected by legislation on accessibility. For example, our largest customer, the U.S. federal government, is required by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act to purchase accessible IT equipment. Section 508 has been voluntarily adopted by other public sector institutions, including 22 out of 50 state governments. All public school systems that receive funding from the U.S. Department of Education are required to purchase equipment under Section 508.
Accessibility in the workplace is also an important part of Cisco's employee programs which is reported in workplace accessibility.
Objectives
Our goal is to make our products, documentation, Websites, and services accessible to both our own employees and other people with disabilities.
Our accessibility objectives are to:
- Increase accessibility of Cisco products
- Train employees to design, produce, market, and deliver accessible products, Websites, and documentation
- Support Cisco customers and employees in addressing accessibility issues related to products and the workplace
- Evaluate the accessibility, usability, and compatibility of our products throughout the design process
- Involve people with disabilities in research projects, testing, and trials of our products
- Support and contribute to industry standards and guidelines for accessibility
Performance
In 2004, Cisco launched the Accessibility Initiative at its San Jose headquarters. The goal of the initiative is to develop and implement the necessary procedures to help ensure our products, facilities, Websites, and documentation are accessible to our employees and our customers with disabilities. The initiative was overseen by a cross-functional team and one of Cisco's largest technology groups, the Voice Technology Group (VTG). The initiative's plan for FY2004 was to create Accessibility Design Requirements, develop a training program, and construct an accessibility lab.
Cisco's Accessibility Design Requirements (ADRs) are a critical aspect of the initiative. ADRs are a knowledge base of requirements, providing details on how to design accessible products, Websites, and documentation. Using global legal and regulatory requirements, industry standards, and university research, Cisco synthesized the ADRs into a single reference that can be used to evaluate current products and shape the design and development of future products. Training is conducted throughout Cisco to encourage the proper implementation of ADRs.
We developed and implemented online training for accessibility awareness as a milestone in developing a comprehensive training program called Accessibility Academy.
In March 2005, we completed construction of a state-of-the-art Accessibility Testing Lab and Evaluation Studio at our headquarters in San Jose. The lab provides a unique, purpose-built environment where we can test and evaluate the accessibility of our products and documentation. The lab's role is to:
- Test Websites and products such as hardware, software, and Web applications for accessibility and their conformance to applicable accessibility laws
- Assess whether our products and Websites are compatible with common assistive technology devices such as screen readers and teletypewriter (TTY) devices
- Demonstrate to customers how our products can be used by people with disabilities and how they are compatible with assistive technology
The lab features full digital audio and video recording capabilities. Web developers, engineers, product managers, documentation writers, and researchers can observe focus groups and gain a better understanding of how our products are used by people with disabilities, and how we can adapt them to better match their needs.
In FY2005, the Accessibility Team became a central part of the Cisco Engineering department with the goal to guide business units and technology groups to change their engineering processes and to help them develop accessible products through product evaluation, testing, and hands-on training. For FY2005, the Accessibility Initiative plan was to extend our initiative to more business units and technology groups, expand Accessibility Academy, and make key internal and external Websites accessible.
As of FY2005, the Accessibility Initiative has been extended to nine key business units. The Accessibility Initiative has been guiding them to change their engineering processes and evaluate and test products. The initiative has also offered role-specific training courses for all key accessibility-related roles within the business units.
In 2005 we expanded Accessibility Academy to include training for product managers, program/project managers, developers, testers, compliance, and documentation.
We launched an Accessibility area on Cisco's public Website. The Website's framework was made accessible to improve the navigation experience for people using screen readers, which use a text-to-speech synthesizer to translate what is displayed on the screen into audible text. In addition, we made our Cisco Employee Connection intranet 508-compliant with U.S. regulations and Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C)-compliant with European regulations.
Cisco contributes to accessibility standards and guidelines created by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA).
