Perkins Access Digital Accessibility Services

Perkins Solutions can help your organization provide accessible digital and physical spaces, bring your organization into compliance with federal regulations – and protect you from potential lawsuits. Forthcoming updates to the ADA and to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act will mandate that digital assets be accessible to all consumers.

Through its Perkins Access digital accessibility services, Perkins Solutions checks your digital assets and gets you up-to-speed with current and imminent guidelines.

The National Law Review reports, “recent settlement agreements with DOJ have seen an increased focus on website accessibility ...” Perkins Access can help you avoid legal action from the start.

Digital Accessibility

At Perkins, we believe that accessibility is good for you and good for your business. Digital accessibility means you can effectively serve more customers, better support your employees and avoid costly litigation.

Accessibility benefits all users. From the use of captioning on videos to having breadcrumbs on your site, all users can benefit when accessibility is a core part of the site’s design.

Perkins’ philosophy for digital accessibility is assess, remediate andsustain. We provide assessments to identify what is inaccessible, remediation services to fix those issues and lasting sustainability solutions that instill processes, policies and enterprise-wide solutions to foster ongoing self-sufficiency within an organization.

Success for our clients is paramount. We work every day with blind and low vision colleagues and know how important access is for everyone. The more successful you are, the more opportunities there are for individuals with disabilities.

Services

• Introductory Assessment Package

• Accessibility Assessments

• Remediation Solutions

• Sustainability Solutions

• Additional Services

Introductory Assessment Package

For one low-price we will review a sample of the digital assets across your enterprise and provide you with an Access Report that outlines the accessibility issues discovered. For more information or to receive your introductory assessment, contact access@perkins.org.

Accessibility Assessments

Perkins Solutions conducts accessibility reviews of your web content, mobile applications, Microsoft Office files, PDFs and hardware to identify accessibility issues and develop remediation plans to ensure that those assets can be fully used by individuals with disabilities. This will help your organization better comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and other applicable laws on disability and accessibility.

Remediation Solutions

With an understanding of where there are digital accessibility issues, Perkins Solutions manages the remediation efforts. Our remediation capabilities include support for:

• Coding (HTML, JavaScript, etc.)

• Files (Microsoft Office files and Adobe PDFs)

• Media (captions and audio description)

Sustainability Solutions

For clients needing a sustainable model to ensure accessibility remains a priority across your infrastructure, Perkins Solutions offers a combined monitoring and training program.  This sustainable solution introduces the processes, policies, knowledge and technology you need to ensure ongoing accessibility compliance. Using manual and automated inspection across your enterprise, we ensure that accessibility issues are flagged as new assets are incorporated to your system.  We pair this with training so your organization can become self-sufficient in your accessibility efforts. 

Additional Services

In addition to reviewing your digital infrastructure for accessibility and conformance with Section 508, Perkins Solutions can also support efforts to comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act by offering individualized assessments for any individual who has a disability and needs help determining what type of assistive technology solution would best accommodate his or her disability.

Pricing

Perkins School for the Blind is a not-for-profit entity and strives to keep its consulting fees lower than those of for-profit companies. For more information or a quote on your project, contact us at access@perkins.org.

Accessibility Consulting for Buildings and Spaces

Perkins Access can help the physical spaces in your buildings achieve optimal access for individuals with disabilities. Whether you are curious about the accessibility and usability of the physical spaces in your building, preparing for a renovation project, or planning to build a new building, the Perkins Access team can add value. 

Building codes cover the most essential criteria for ensuring access to physical locations by individuals with disabilities. Those codes govern criteria such as door width, door-handle type, the steepness of wheelchair ramps, etc. There are, however, many additional design considerations that can supplement those efforts, promoting an even greater level of access by individuals with disabilities. Those considerations include integrating tactile floor elements, providing adjustable lighting controls, ensuring appropriate wall-to-floor contrast, and many other best practices.

As part of our Perkins Access consulting services, we walkthrough the rooms and spaces and evaluate using our proprietary criteria list. We also conduct interviews with key building stakeholders, such as the facilities manager, actual employees with disabilities, safety personnel, etc. to learn about the in-place processes and resources to support individuals with disabilities. Clients receive a detailed Access Report of accessibility issues and recommendations for improvement.