Scheduled at 11:45 in Colorado G-H on Friday, November 20.
#43784Speaker(s)
- Craig Boassaly, President, Eliquo Training & Development Incorporated
Session Details
- Length of Session: 1-hr
- Format: Interactive/Discussion
- Expertise Level: Intermediate
- Type of session: General Conference
Summary
Why do the same accessibility barriers return after years of training, audits, remediation, and software? This session shifts the focus upstream. Attendees will examine how planning, templates, handoffs, ownership, governance, and role-specific learning shape accessibility outcomes—and use a practical framework to identify where their institution’s content production system is creating preventable barriers.
Abstract
For more than two decades, colleges, universities, government agencies, and other organizations have invested in accessibility training, audits, remediation, software, and compliance programs. Yet many of the same barriers continue to appear in websites, documents, presentations, forms, video, and course content. Why?
This session argues that recurring accessibility failures are rarely caused by a lack of concern or effort. They are more often produced by systems that do not consistently support the people doing the work. Problems begin upstream in planning, format selection, templates, unclear role expectations, workflow handoffs, governance, and late-stage review. By the time an accessibility specialist or checker finds the defect, the institution is often correcting a decision that could have been prevented much earlier.
Drawing on more than 24 years of working with digital content teams, Craig Boassaly will introduce Accessible Content Operations, a practical framework for building accessibility into everyday production. Attendees will learn how to map a content workflow, locate the points where accessibility is lost, trace recurring failures to their upstream causes, and make a stronger internal case for accessible templates, clear decision rights, proportionate quality checks, and role-specific training.
This is not an argument against audits, remediation, technology, or accessibility specialists. Those functions are essential. The challenge is to connect them to a production system that learns from defects and prevents the same problems from returning. Attendees will leave with five diagnostic questions, a workflow-mapping method, and a clear starting point for improving accessibility capacity across their institution.
Keypoints
- Recurring accessibility defects usually reveal upstream system failures, not isolated mistakes.
- Workflow mapping exposes where accessibility is lost between planning, production, and publishing.
- Role-specific training, templates, and governance turn accessibility into repeatable campus capacity.
Disability Areas
All Areas
Topic Areas
Alternate Format, Assistive Technology, Captioning/Transcription, Other, Uncategorized, Web/Media/App Access
Speaker Bio(s)
Craig Boassaly
Craig founded Eliquo in 2002. Over the past 25 years in the training industry, Craig has established a long history of successfully helping thousands of content designers shape ideas that inspire their personal experiences, branding, and storytelling with their communities. As President of Eliquo, Craig is responsible for charting the company’s overall direction and strategies for client services and growth.