The Cost Effectiveness of Accessible PDF
1 Version is Less Than 10
Organizations have historically been required to accommodate requests from non-visual end users in alternative formats including plain text documents, audio versions and Braille among others. This approach, regarded as “on-demand accessibility” often alienates end users because of the effort they need to invest in order to obtain an accessible version of the content and the difficulties they encounter accessing the content.
When an organization is required to source and supply separate versions of the same document to address individual physical or intellectual disabilities, the cost associated with each version adds incrementally to the production, storage and distribution costs.
A PDF from Accessibil-IT provides organizations with a platform approach to content accessibility which allows for a single accessible PDF to be furnished on a website or distributed by email and the end user can access the document as a PDF, or in the format of their choosing without any subsequent cost to the providing organization.
Training & Automated Approaches vs. Accessibil-IT
Fair pricing is a fundamental philosophy of Accessibil-IT. We recognize that for accessible communications to become part of day to day operations, our service must be cost effective. Our prices are based on the size and complexity of the document, not on the existence of a legislated requirement.
There is a common misconception that document accessibility is straightforward and therefore people can be easily trained to do it. This is often the first approach organizations take, with the goal of minimizing document accessibility costs. Training courses typically teach the basics; tagging and alt-text which may be applied successfully to simple documents such as a letter.
There are also software options for tagging. Software may be a viable option for documents which are static formats and large volumes, like statements. It is not sufficient for documents or designs where the reading order varies from page to page or includes complex graphics and elements such as tables and charts.
Document accessibility is not straightforward. The level of technical expertise needed to make a document truly accessible is beyond the scope of training programs as well as the typical skill sets of content authors, even those who are confident with popular authoring software.
Why take the risk of investing in approaches that focus your resources away from their core responsibilities only to learn you need additional assistance to achieve a fully accessible document? Accessibil-IT provides accessibility services from the simplest to the most complex of document design. We have the core skills and resources to meet your document accessibility needs on your timetable. We firmly believe that it is more cost efficient to use the expertise of Accessibil-IT resources, then to use any other approach to achieve your document accessibility goals.