International Accessibility Maturity Standard ISO 30071-1 Accessibility Maturity Standard – all you need to know

What is it?

ISO 30071-1 Code of practice for creating accessible ICT products and services is an international process-oriented Standard enabling organisations to embed accessibility considerations into their “business as usual” processes. The Standard adapts and extends its predecessor, British Standard BS 8878, which it supersedes.

Our Chief Exec, Jonathan Hassell, led the creation of ISO 30071-1 based on 20 years’ of practical experience embedding digital accessibility into digital products at the BBC, and working as a strategic partner with HSBC to help them reach their ambition of becoming the most accessible bank in the world.

The Hassell Inclusion team is committed to sharing our knowledge and expertise to have the greatest impact on accessibility internationally. Our Accessibility Maturity Services, based on ISO 30071-1, are helping hundreds of global corporations and smaller organisations embed accessibility into their practices.

Find out about our Maturity Services

ISO 30071-1 in 71 seconds video

20% of the population of most countries have a disability.

Another 20-25% have accessibility needs due to ageing.

ISO 30071-1 helps you create digital products so this 40-45% of the population can use them.

It helps you embed inclusive design in your organisation:
– to understand what you have to gain from it
– and to make it business-as-usual most efficiently
– by embedding it in policies like procurement,
– by getting support from experts,
– and training your teams so they know what to do themselves

It also helps you embed inclusive design in your product development process:
– how the different purposes and audiences of products change the way you do accessibility
– what accessibility guidelines to use when you’re creating mobile apps
– how to make sure technology enablers like CMSes and JavaScript libraries can deliver accessibility
– how to embed accessibility efficiently into your team’s sprint and test planning
– how to prioritise between accessibility fixes when you can’t do everything for everyone
– and how to let users know of any accessibility deficiencies when your product goes live and give them a way of contacting you

Using ISO 30071-1, each member of the team knows what they can do to help make products appeal to the widest possible audience, to uphold your brand values, and minimise any legal risk.

Read Jonathan Hassell's books on ISO 30071-1: Inclusive Design for Organisations and Products – Including your missing 20% by embedding web and mobile accessibility

“For someone who wants to begin the process of implementing accessibility practice into their organisation, I see these books as essential”
Jennison Asuncion, Founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day

The 2nd editions of our books are now available, updated for ISO 30071-1. They will take you on a journey to transform your organisation to consistently achieve the creation of websites and mobile apps that are usable for all your customers, at the most efficient cost.

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To find out more about the books click here

How is ISO 30071-1 different from WCAG?

ISO 30071-1 isn’t a replacement for other accessibility standards like WCAG which concentrate on the technical, design or testing elements of accessibility. ISO 30071-1 puts those important activities in a framework to ensure that all aspects of an organisation’s activities which impact accessibility & inclusion are covered.

This includes guidance on how to embed accessibility considerations into: procurement and selection of production tools and CMSes; outsourcing production to third-parties; assessment of accessibility risk and impact on budgets; and governance of inclusion across a portfolio of evolving digital products.

More specifically it helps practitioners:

understand why digital inclusion and accessibility makes good business sense
embed accessibility responsibility strategically across key job-roles, and into key organisational and technical policies
embed accessibility into the software development lifecycle process for their products to ensure the accessibility impact of key development decisions is not missed, and accessibility is delivered in the most efficient way
adopt an informed way of making and documenting these decisions to provide a log which can be used for monitoring accessibility risk and proving conformance with the Standard
provide guidance on finding or researching detailed accessibility requirements for a broad range of digital products including: websites, mobile apps, VR/AR apps, smart speaker apps, kiosk apps, apps on in-flight and in-car entertainment systems, games on games consoles, and software in ATMs and Electronic Point of Sales systems

How can digital accessibility help you meet your business goals? What’s your ISO 30071-1 Digital Accessibility Maturity Score?

If you don’t know where you are, how can you plan for where you’re going?

Based on the new Standard ISO 30071-1, discover your organisations’s Digital Accessibility Maturity score today using our free Scorecard, to:

gain clarity on where the gaps are in your accessibility practices,
receive personalised advice based on your result on how to improve your score in each of 9 dimensions of accessibility maturity, and
stop wasting your time and money focusing on the wrong things…

Find your score