How to Choose the Right Document Remediation Partner?

The terms ‘digital accessibility’ and ‘508 accessibility compliance’ are taking businesses by storm. Wondering why? Firstly, the size of the market segment excluded by inaccessible PDFs, documents, and websites is too massive to be ignored. Secondly, the legal risk that comes along with inaccessible documents and websites is quite expensive, both in terms of costs and brand integrity.

So, the digital documents used by the companies, whether on websites, emails, notices, etc. should be built in such a way that the content can be interpreted and reproduced by the assistive technologies in a useful way. And this is what Section 508 Accessibility Compliance takes care of—it ensures that Computer and Information technology is accessible to everyone, including the disabled population.

In a nutshell, 508 compliance aims to create equal opportunities for the population with disabilities and leverage technology to bridge the digital gaps. The process of taking existing documents such as PDFs, PowerPoint, Word files, etc., and turning them into AT-compatible ones is known as document remediation.

According to the recent World Health Organization factsheet, an estimated 1.3 billion people, which is almost equivalent to 16% of the total world population, experience significant disabilities today. Businesses looking to tap unreached market segments and generate greater revenues cannot afford to ignore such a significant number.

However, the process of remediating documents is easier said than done as it is a resource-intensive and time-consuming task. It can add to operational expenditure in terms of infrastructure, technology implementation, resource training, hiring and so on. Besides, managing it in-house along with other core business competencies becomes challenging.

Though there are various document remediation tools available online, they have certain limitations and cannot be relied on completely as you might end up missing the details. Face-value decisions can be disastrous as the repercussions of unremedied documents can be expensive and far-reaching. Hence, you can either consult professionals or collaborate with experienced outsourcing companies.

Service providers already have the potential required to remediate a wide range of documents, be it annual reports, user manuals, marketing brochures, training manuals, text books, publication forms, and so on.

Finding the Right 508 Document Remediation Service Provider

There’s no dearth of document remediation service providers in the digital space. Choosing the appropriate one out of the whole lot when every company proclaims to be the best is an uphill task. Avoid the pitfall of spending money and time on questionable remediation services by paying close attention to these five test points.

• Experience and Skills

Experience counts when it comes to remediating documents accurately to make them AT-compatible. Working day in and day out on such tasks, the professional providers have numerous quick tricks rolled up their sleeves. They perform a complete analysis of the sourced document and conduct all the relevant tests to find accessibility gaps. These experts know what it takes to remediate documents accurately and hence, work accordingly.

• Quality With Accuracy

As stated earlier, document remediation is a laborious process that needs a ridiculous level of attention to detail as images, charts, bullet lists, graphs, and other text formatting details require time to process. Though there are tools to speed up, the process is still not fully automated as there are way too many document variables for a tool to pre-process the document reliably. Going with a faster turnaround time alone is not a good option. Instead, a service provider that takes care of the entire document remediation process—from meeting color contrast requirements to adding appropriate alt-text and images, and conveying the author’s intent is the ideal choice.

• Tech Acumen

Document remediation is too complicated of a process to be fully automated. Though there are tools that can recognize text formatting and can auto-generate most of the tags—the problem is with different styles of writing and formatting, especially with older documents where the tools usually get things wrong. A service provider that leverages a time-tested blend of manual processes along with the automated tagging tools is good to go, over the ones that would provide a technically remediated PDF document.

• Flexibility and Scalability

Every business has different document remediation requirements and might need to upscale/downscale the operations to meet those needs. Check whether they can handle projects of varying complexities or not. Make sure that the service provider has flexible delivery models to meet your unique needs without compromising on the quality or integrity of the data.

• Pricing

Pricing is one of the key factors to be considered. Though you need to pay for the genuine document remediation services availed, make sure that the outsourcing company is transparent in the dealings. By this, we mean that they do not add any surprise or hidden charges by the end of the project. Consider it a red flag if you find any hidden charges, apart from the ones discussed before signing the deal.

Clearly, this is not a comprehensive list; however, it can provide you with good guidance to simplify your process by weeding out the outsourcing companies that over-promise.

Ending Note

It is a huge responsibility for companies to make sure their documents are accessible to individuals with disabilities. Otherwise, failing to comply with Section 508 accessibility law can be a costly problem to solve, both in terms of the brand reputation and fines. This is why business leaders look for 508 compliance services before a lawsuit knocks on their door.

But with plenty of outsourcing companies available online, finding the right one is again a tough job. There’s nothing worse than going with a service provider that trivializes the complexity of your project by bringing up all the issues they earlier claimed to be non-issues. By then, you might’ve already committed significant resources, and going back may not be an option even if you want to, both budget-wise and time-wise.

In a nutshell, the service provider that understands your remediation requirements and aligns the outcomes according to the desired business goals, without burning a hole in your pocket is the right choice.