Since the beginning of the digital age, circa the mid-20th century, society has slowly begun to harness the power of information technology. When computers became more portable and cheaper to manufacture, this meant that more people could access them. Mobile phones and device miniaturisation are continuing to make web accessibility more possible today.

Current statistics show that about 15% of the world's population is considered to be living with some sort of disability. While this is a significant proportion of the human race, it’s quite apparent that most technology is designed with the 85% in mind. 

Not only that, the web should be fully functional for every single person trying to access it, regardless of their software, hardware or location. Meeting this goal ensures accessibility isn’t exclusive to the majority.

What is web accessibility?

Web accessibility refers to the design and development of websites that are accessible to people living with disabilities. While there are various types of disabilities, there are some that make it difficult for some to access certain types of web content. 

Such individuals at times have to use assistive technologies to access it. Examples of these include screen readers, text-to-speech, screen enlargement, voice recognition and word prediction technologies. However, these technologies only work if the principles have been applied by the website creators.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are some web accessibility guidelines provided by the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The current version of these guidelines is WCAG 2.1, although the newer versions 2.2 and 3 are still under draft.

Why web accessibility is important

People living with disability face a variety of disadvantages in their day-to-day living; one of these is web accessibility. When some individuals aren’t able to fully access the web, particularly due to its design, they are considered a part of the digitally excluded.

Disability inclusion aims to address the barriers posed by information and communication technology as this infringes on some of their basic rights. A person living with disability has a right to access any web service just as much as an able bodied individual.

Improving accessibility for your website helps to address any discrimination that it can potentially pose on people living with disability. Web accessibility means “that people with disabilities can equally perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with websites and tools.”

The four principles: POUR

There are four principles that should be the baseline for the design or development of a website to ensure accessibility. They can also be applied to any other information technology as well. A website should be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust:

• Perceivable: When it comes to perceivability, this means that the content and user interface elements can be identified using human senses. Generally, vision is the primary one, since websites are usually meant to be read. Secondary senses include sound and touch.

A website or app should be built in a way that ensures that there is alternative access through other senses that may be diminished or missing. This is why there are video captions for those who are partially or completely deaf, for example.

• Operable: A website’s user interface components (e.g buttons and controls) and any of its interactive parts should be accessible through multiple input tools. The site or app should not have interactions that the user is unable to perform.

The website should also allow for errors, making sure that the user has ample time to fix them. One example of operability is that a website should cater for those who might use only a keyboard, for example, and cannot use a mouse. 

• Understandable: This refers to a website having consistency in formatting and having predictable patterns. Users should also be able to understand and remember how to navigate the website or app.

In addition, it should provide feedback to users, helping them with any errors. In fact, any potential errors a user may experience should be mitigated against through contextual help. 

• Robust: For this principle, a website needs to be able to be interpreted well by multiple platforms, devices and other technologies, taking into consideration the functional limits of each of these. Users should have choice with regards to the technology they desire to use to interact with a website or app. Also, the coding needs to be clean to prevent errors.

How to become AAA compliant

There are currently three levels for web accessibility guidelines, according to the WCAG. These are levels A (basic), AA (intermediate) and AAA (optimal). The majority of organisations aim to achieve AA status. Compliance level AAA encompasses the standards of all three levels.

• Level A aims to meet 25 criteria and is relatively easy to meet. However, these websites are usually difficult for people living with disabilities to use. In general, requirements include the ability to navigate using only a keyboard and having alternative text for content. 
• Level AA has 38 criteria that the majority of people with or without disabilities have the ability to use. It includes criteria such as having a colour contrast of at least 4.5:1. In addition, alternative text should have meaning.

To become Level AAA compliant, you have to meet all 61 success criteria as provided by the WCAG. To help you, the WCAG provides a checklist. 

AAA sites are mainly aimed at maximising users and the criteria is very strict. This compliance level is aimed at enabling access to individuals with audiovisual impairments.

Some of the AAA criteria include having a colour contrast level of at least 7:1. In addition, there should be sign language interpretation of media content. Having a variety of accessibility tools is commonplace on AAA sites.

If you are considering a level of compliance you would like to meet, first try and figure out who your target users are. For example, if your website or app is meant for elderly users or those living with disability, then AAA compliance is the way to go.

So, choose a compliance level that suits the needs of both you and your audience. Start taking steps to understand what changes you need to make to your website using the chosen compliance level and watch your audience grow, while better serving your current users.

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Author: Brandon Busuttil, MD, Digital Grind

To the untrained ear, the phrase “martech” sounds like another buzzword, and maybe in some ways, it is. It seems like everybody is adding the “tech” to words that already exist these days and making it a thing. However, there is real merit to understanding the intricacies behind the growing movement towards using technology in marketing and the applications and mechanisms that make this possible. 

As brand owners, playing in the marketing space, there are universal challenges that we have to overcome and tech provides us with a ton of ways to get there. 

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The data conundrum

One of the biggest problems we face in the digital landscape today is making sense of enormous amounts of data available to us. In fact, according to TechJury, “1.7MB of data was created every second by every person during 2020” and these numbers only seem to be growing. With such a substantial base of information to sift through, it can seem impossible to draw truly valuable insights and manual detection of brand mentions can only get us so far. There just aren’t enough hours in a day or people on Earth to do the job of monitoring software, which is so key to improving performance in our industry. 

Does this mean that human power is now redundant? Of course not. But it is a good example of how embracing martech makes our everyday operations more efficient and helps create the right environment for smarter people-power. Without social listening and media monitoring, we create unimaginable amounts of work for employees, and by introducing data that needs to be manually vetted and constantly added to, we’re back at square one in terms of lacking resources for comprehending the digital spaces we operate in.

According to GlobalNewswire, the media monitoring software market was approximately USD 2,260 million in 2018 and is expected to generate around USD 7,236 million by 2027, at a CAGR of around 13.9% between 2019 and 2027”. What does this tell us? That data filtering is on the rise, and is quickly becoming part of our everyday operations in terms of monitoring, listening and reporting. 

As a result of this, new SaaS solutions are springing up around the globe, with major players in competition to get the monopoly. For brands and agencies, this shows an important skills gap to fill when it comes to understanding this software and developing the ability to draw meaningful insights and base campaigns on key findings. In order to future-proof the success of your digital marketing, you will need a firm grasp on the data landscape around your brand and the infrastructure to understand it. 

Martech skills development will grow massively in select nations

While the world is already adopting marketing technologies at a faster rate than pre-pandemic, we’re seeing a massive uptake of interest and skills development in tech-driven nations. For example, the first knowledge hub, related specifically to martech, popped up in the UAE in 2019. Now, only 3 years later, there’s a range of publications and supporting organizations coming to the fore, such as MartechNews and the Daily Martech Roundup, each with loyal followings. 

Spending and investment is on the rise

In the Gartner 2019 - 2020 survey (which conducts research from the responses of over 340 participants), it was reported that top-line marketing spend would decrease for the first time in over 5 years. So, this means that martech spend should decrease too, right? But the opposite has happened. The same survey findings showed that “martech spending rose to 29% of total budgets” - a phenomenal leap in light of the current scarcity of resources.

What does this mean for businesses, brands and entrepreneurs? It’s time to adopt or die. This level of investment and shift in spending is usually spurred on by greater ROI and predictive forecasting, which means the data is showing consistently high returns, either on resource savings or generation, that comes as a direct result of using martech more. 

New tools are emerging at a rapid rate

While some technological industries are forging partnerships within the ranks, martech seems to be a competitive and fast-paced environment. In fact, Martech Today reported that there are more than 8000 notable tools currently on the market for combining brand messaging and analytics with tech. 

These were mostly data analysis tools. To some, this may seem like an opportunity to join forces, but it appears that barring a few buyouts and acquisitions, we still haven’t quite solved the problem of adequately centralising data analytics and media interactions. Until this is achieved, and someone takes the monopoly, a rang of tools will continue to emerge.  

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Preparing for the future

With growth in the martech sector becoming more evident and having an increasingly significant impact on marketing professionals, a few things are clear. The first of which is that brands must put the infrastructure in place to navigate a changing digital landscape or face some level of becoming obsolete. In short, there are a few critical steps towards preparing for the continued rise of martech:

• Setting up infrastructure requires internal skills development and enlisting the help of expert service providers who already understand the space.
• Marketing tools can automate daily tasks and take the grunt-work out of manually interpreting data. As this becomes the norm, it’s important for brands to be able to use and interact with these tools.
• Businesses should designate marketing teams to help them continue to drive brand growth and capitalise on the growing level of opportunity available to them.
• Outsmarting competitors will mean savvy, integrated marketing that’s based on data but does not forgo the human element. 
• A bigger focus on allocating resources to marketing is a must in order to stay competitive and stay relevant to key audiences. 
  

At Digital Grind, we work tirelessly to understand the digital landscape and to keep building our technical infrastructure to meet the growing demands of the industry. Speak to us for more information or enlist our services on your next project and we can start to work together to ensure your business is fit for the future.

The cost of software development, upgrade and maintenance projects can be a sore point because they don’t come cheap. Whether you take-on the projects in-house or outsource them, there are technology and resourcing costs that can spiral when unmanaged, causing them to go over-budget.

As with any project, a quick return on investment is wanted from software projects. When your business is reliant on technology to run and be profitable, extended tech projects that don’t perform or deliver value fast are a thorn in the side of business continuity as well as the bottom line.

Here’s an idea of software project costs

In Dubai, the cost of the average app development project ranges from $5 000 to $10 000. For complications and multi-feature app, prices shoot to between $267 000 and $360 000. 

Need a website? For a small and simple business website, expect to pay in the region of $15 000.  For a conversion or lead-focused website, the cost will be about $30 000, and $50 000 upwards for a complex, feature-rich website. 

The average cost of a business software upgrade, from Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management systems to IT security, can range from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the size and the type of business you are in.

Don’t underestimate the time and financial resources needed to build quality, functional software applications. There is a lot that goes into it and costs begin to stack-up when the project doesn’t perform or goes over-budget. 

Use the Cost Performance Index to measure project cost efficiency

The Cost Performance Index is a measure of the financial effectiveness and efficiency of a project, and represents the amount of work completed for every monetary unit spent. Project managers can use CPI to measure the cost efficiency of software projects against the work actually completed for an early flag that budget or scope adjustments need to be made. Simply put, it is a way of demonstrating whether or not your project is on budget and performing.

Using the CPI will give you an honest view of the cost efficiency of budgeted resources as a ratio of earned value to actual costs. 

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The power of one

You can calculate the Cost Performance Index by dividing the Earned Value (EV) by Actual Cost (AC). When we talk about Earned Value (EV), we are talking about the amount of the task that is actually completed compared to what was planned to be done by a particular stage. It is expressed in terms of the budget set for the project. For instance, if the budget is $10,000 but only 20% of the work has been completed halfway through the six month project timeframe, then the EV is $2,000. The Actual Cost (AC) is the amount of money that has been spent on the task.

So, CPI = EV / AC 

For example, if a project has an EV of $30 000 but the AC is $15 000, the CPI is 2. 

But what does that mean?

CPI < 1 – a CPI that is less than one means the earning is less than the amount spent. You can say the project is over budget. 

CPI > 1 – a CPI that greater than one means the earning is more than the amount spent. This is when you can happily say that the project is under budget. 

CPI = 1 – a CPI equal to one means the earning and spending are equal. Everything is going according to plan and the project is performing well. 

The upside and downside of technology

In this digital age, you know that technology not only enables your business but powers it. There is a downside though. Software needs constant maintenance and frequent upgrades. Don’t consider maintenance or upgrade projects as a nuisance. Instead, see upgrades as an investment into better efficiencies, seamless continuity, improved productivity, more features, greater functionality, happier employees, more engaged customers, tighter IT security and reduced risks. The list of rewards from optimised software goes on, and they translate into business growth. Maintaining your software systems will ensure that they are up-to-date, bug-free, cyber-secure and working as they should. 

Hand it over

Budget, skills and resourcing constraints will impact the progress and ultimate success of your software projects, whether it’s a new app development or a website upgrade. Poor planning leads to slow progress and failing to reach the goals you want to achieve. You want a CPI equal to one or more if you want the most bang for your buck.

Not your forte? Hand it over. At Digital Grind we eat, sleep and drink this stuff. We have an established team of tech experts who understand the software development, maintenance and user experience design landscape. We also know that getting ROI on software projects is important to our clients. So planning and sticking to budget and project timelines is non-negotiable. We aim for a CPI of one or more on every project we undertake. Have a look at what we did for Moro Hub. 

Got a goal or a project in mind? Start it now with Digital Grind.