Major new report Accessible ICT — Benefits to Business and Society
Bloor Research is a member of the OneVoice for Accessible ICT coalition and is delighted to announce the availability of an accessible PDF version of the coalition’s report “Accessible Information and Communication TechnologiesBenefits to Business and Society”
The coalition was formed to bring like-minded organisations together to act as one voice for ICT accessibility and usability. The coalition central goal is to develop a shared agenda for change in accessible and usable ICT in order for business and society to receive the maximum benefits from ICT. To achieve this the coalition have identified three specific themes to collaborate and work on:
- Promotion: this theme will look to the benefits to the economy and society of provisioning accessible and usable information and communication technologies and update the rationale and business case to underpin this.
- Campaigns: campaigns will increase the awareness of ICT accessibility across all sectors. In addition to awareness this theme also focuses on influencing and working with the ICT industry to make the ICT products and services accessible and usable.
- Professionalism: professionalisation focuses on establishing a suite of academic and vocational courses in ICT accessibility for ICT and health professionals. These courses will provide a range of qualifications to recognise standard for ICT accessibility.
The first output from the coalition is a report entitled “Accessible Information and Communication TechnologiesBenefits to Business and Society”. This unique report reflects the experiences of representatives from the ICT industry, business, government, the third sector and academia. Executives from some of the U.K.’s principal employers, procurers and producers of ICT, present their business rationale for commitment to diversity and inclusion and the commercial benefits they have reaped through investing in accessible ICT.
The report has forewords by John Varley, CEO, Barclays, and the Right Honourable Stephen Timms, Minister for digital Britain.
The report presents a series of case studies that show how enterprises have achieved their key business goals through the use of accessible ICT. It then goes on to outline how to make accessible ICT business-as-usual in an enterprise. The final section is a call to action to further the case for accessible ICT.
The printed version of the report was launched at an event in late January with speeches from both John Varley and Stephen Timms.
We are delighted to announce the availability of an accessible electronic PDF version of the report which can be freely downloaded from the One Voice for ICT Coalition website http://www.onevoiceict.org/tools/tr-tools.asp. We would like to thank NetCentric, who created the accessible version using NetCentric CommonLook