Transcript: Jay Wyant on Policy Actions to Increase the Use of Accessible Technology in the Workplace
PEAT asked Jay Wyant, Chief Information Accessibility Officer, Minnesota State CIO Office: “If you were President for the day, what specific policy action would you promote or change to increase the use of accessible technologies in the workplace?”
Wyant: If I was President for a day, the policy that I would promote would be the policy that all companies, all organizations must have accessibility policies and they must be able to develop a trackable measurable mechanism for how they’re going to implement that accessibility policy in terms of the hiring in terms of their developing solutions in their own workplace, where that might, or how to build their own solution. So, for example, are they training people people, how they build things, do they build things that are accessible, do they sell things that are accessible, do they use things that are accessible.
By putting implementing an accessibility policy they’re going to have to track, it they’re going to have to measure it, and then buyers want to buy from a company, for example they can ask about the accessibility policy, they can verify that they did actually follow it and that they have measurable component to it and that becomes an evaluation point in RFPs, or a mechanism whereby people can evaluate companies or their values.
