Atlantic Business Technologies, Inc.

Category: Government

Why Your Website Needs Accessibility
We’ve all heard the saying that “content is king” when it comes to the web. But what if you’re a sight-impaired person trying to access your favorite website? In a perfect world, your screen would read out all of the text on the page and give you the option to click on links. That’s where website accessibility works: to ensure that everyone has access to the same information and tools, regardless of disability or other factors.

Most of us already know that there are rules for physical premises when it comes to accessibility for people with disabilities, either physical or socio-economic. Fewer know that accessibility can apply to online content, as well.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandates something called WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) compliance, which is a means of designing websites, tools, and technologies so that people with disabilities can use them as easily as possible. WCAG compliance covers several types of disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, limited movement, speech disabilities, neurological limitations such as Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s, and cognitive limitations such as learning disabilities.

The goal of ADA compliance is the creation of a website that uses a variety of different design and web development practices to assist people with disabilities in successfully navigating the site.

Who Needs to Have an Accessible Website?

The ADA requires state and local governments to be accessible under Title I and any business that is open to the public under Title III.

State and local government websites, as well as any private business that receives federal funding receive the most scrutiny for accessibility. An inaccessible website can bar users with disabilities from the government entity’s services, events, and activities.

Websites are increasingly becoming accepted as public spaces and public spaces are required to be accessible in order to be ADA compliant. The Department of Justice has historically interpreted that ADA compliance applies to all “goods, services, privileges, or activities offered by public accommodations, including those offered on the web.” Public websites may include those for:
- Retail
- Restaurants
- Hotels, Inns, and Motels
- Hospitals and Medical Offices
- Banks
- Theaters and Sports Arenas
What are the Benefits of Accessibility?

There are numerous benefits to making your website ADA compliant. In terms of customer retention, it’s a good idea to design web content to be as accessible to as many people as possible. Users with disabilities are a highly under-served segment, so ADA compliance can help your organization differentiate itself from competitors. Accessible sites and apps allow more people to engage with your organization, buy your products, or access your services.

Some other ways that Accessibility benefits your organization include:
- Reduced risk of legal complications
- Improved user experience for everyone
- Improved website Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Simply put, managing your accessibility is part of building a modern, robust digital platform.

How Do We Know We’re Compliant?

Companies seeking ADA compliance often undergo a website accessibility audit that includes both automated and manual testing to ensure compliance. The audits help companies identify problems and put them on the path to improving their practices, reaching a broader audience, and avoiding discrimination or legal complications.

What is the Process for ADA-Accessibility Audits?

The process is quite straightforward. Once you identify a company that performs accessibility testing, you provide your contact information with the website you’d like the company to review. In particular, you will want your homepage, service/product pages, contact page, and other key landing pages reviewed. Once the report is completed, the company will follow up with a call to discuss their initial findings and share their detailed accessibility audit report with recommendations.

If problems are suspected, the audit company will set up automated testing to catch code issues that make your site inaccessible. The experts may recommend that you update old, inaccessible document repositories to be compliant with modern standards, and can help you develop your accessibility remediation strategy and work with a trusted partner to ensure your site stays up to date.

Consult a Professional Web Design and Development Company

Atlantic BT is an award-winning technology firm located in Raleigh, NC. We offer enterprise web design, website accessibility testing, IT consulting, software development, cybersecurity, and cloud technology to help clients easily manage, secure, and scale their core technologies. We combine full-service digital marketing with custom software development and technology solutions. Our awards stem from outstanding results in all aspects of digital, from UX design to modernizing applications. For more information, contact us or call us at 919-518-0670.
November 7, 2022
Failed RFPs are expensive. Here’s how to find better vendors.
When you find yourself in a scenario where custom software is essential, you have three options:
1. Develop the custom software in-house.
2. Find a partner to handle the entire project.
3. Partner with a vendor who integrates with your team.
This middle ground of working closely with a vendor leads to writing an RFP and evaluating responses.

Why do RFPs fail?

Many RFP partnerships fail due to poor vendor selection or unclear project requirements and deliverables outlined. You may have even lost faith in the process of trusting partners altogether.

Consider that it might not be the RFP process that’s failing, but rather using outdated methods for evaluating your partners. After all, they’ve probably responded to enough RFPs that they’ve learned what you want to hear at the surface level.

Try these evaluation tactics to dig deeper and choose better partners.

1. Stop using price as a measure of quality.

We are trained to believe that price and quality is a linear relationship: the more you pay, the higher the quality and the less you pay, the lower the quality.

However, price is not exclusively tied to a company’s output. It’s also closely tied to internal efficiency and how streamlined internal processes may be.

A vendor who has found a highly efficient way to produce a quality product may have the same price as a company who cuts corners to produce a low quality product.

According to CIO.com, “The highest priced technology partners often spent longer amounts of time on the project, with too many unnecessary staff members and account managers. On the other hand, the lower end of the market often lacked the skill and technical ability to produce consistent quality.

Picking a technology partner is a completely different experience than shopping on Amazon. You cannot go to a vendor and simply pick the lowest price for the exact service you need. It can be a nuance-filled and complex process.”

For this reason, your perfect partner is likely in the middle ground of high and low price.

2. Rely on references over examples.

Most organizations like to see vendors’ examples of past work and testimonials to help them evaluate expertise. This may come in the form of case studies or quick client quotes.

The problem is, these are surface-level validators that can skim over some of the important nitty gritty. You’ll want to take a step further. Always ask for references to discover:
- How the vendor handled issues that arose during the process
- How the vendor performed in terms of budget and timeline
- If the final product was satisfactory and truly provided business value
3. Look for a warranty.

Vendors who truly believe that their services will be satisfactory will offer some sort of guarantee. This may be in the form of month-to-month contracts, commitment to fixing bugs for free, or free work when a project exceeds budget.

4. Seek vendors with flexible processes.

Is your vendor the same? What happens when two rigid organizations work together? Look for a partner who can mold their development, deployment, project management, and billing processes to fit your organization’s standards.

Need help with custom software development?

Whether you need help defining business requirements, writing an RFP, or are in the stage of looking for vendors; we’d love to learn more and see how we can help! Get in touch for a free consultation.
January 28, 2021
Atlantic BT Becomes SOC 2 Type I Certified. What’s Next?
Services Organization Control 2 (SOC 2®) is a thorough technical audit that requires companies to follow strict security procedures. Attaining a SOC 2® report ensures that Atlantic BT is providing safe cloud environments for our clients, both protecting their private data and having a plan of action for detected threats.

While Atlantic BT completed a SOC 2® Type I Audit examination on April 1st 2019, we are currently pursuing SOC 2® Type II. Our goal is to give clients peace of mind with our cloud solutions, educate on security measures, and continue to stay up-to-date with industry standards to prevent future threats.

Type I vs. Type II: What’s the Difference?

SOC 2® engagements are performed in accordance with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (AICPA) AT-C 205, Reporting on Controls at a Service Organization and based on the trust service principles outlined in the AICPA Guide. The SOC 2® Type I report is performed by an independent auditing firm and is intended to provide an understanding of the service organization’s suitability of the design of its internal controls.

Type I and Type II both involve reporting controls and processes related to five principles: Privacy, Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, and Confidentiality. Atlantic BT is focusing on Security, Availability, and Confidentiality.

The primary difference is that Type I confirms our security controls at a single point of time, assuring that all of the proper policies and procedures are in place. On the other hand, Type II spans over six months, assuring that these processes are effectively working.

How Atlantic BT Became SOC 2® Type I Certified

SOC 2® Type I is a starting point that paves the way for Type II. Some examples of the measures we took to achieve our Type I certification include:
- Use of encryption protocols to protect customer data
- Designing with tiered access for client accounts
- Ongoing management of capacity demand
- Required internal training courses to help employees spot suspicious activity
Skoda Minotti, an international business advisory firm, was selected to conduct the final audit. Atlantic BT received its SOC 2® Type I certification after thorough testing and review.

[pull_quote]We were excited to work with Atlantic Business Technologies from the very start. They are an intriguing organization delivering high quality services and their business adds to our growing SOC reporting practice.[/pull_quote]

– Ben Osbrach, CISSP, CISA, QSA, CICP, CCSFP, partner-in-charge of Skoda Minotti’s risk advisory group

What This Means For Partners

It is a requirement for many companies to work with SOC 2® compliant software partners. Businesses handling sensitive data or working in highly regulated industries, for example being subjected to HIPAA compliance regulations, are required to work with SOC 2® compliant providers.

In general, any security-conscious business can count on the rigorous auditing process to hold companies to a high standard.

What’s Next for ABT?

Atlantic BT will undergo audits on an annual basis to maintain their SOC 2® report and continue to apply best practices by maintaining logs of their application of these SOC 2® controls, policies, and procedures to ultimately achieve SOC 2® Type II. Committed to quality, we will continue this voluntary process to provide top-notch service and expand our capabilities.

[pull_quote]The successful completion of our SOC 2® Type I examination audit provides Atlantic BT’s clients with the assurance that the controls and safeguards we employ to protect and secure their data are in line industry standards and best practices.[/pull_quote] – Matt Lemke, President of Atlantic BT

We are happy to further discuss our SOC 2® certification or help you plan for any of your security needs. If you are interested in learning more about our cloud and cybersecurity solutions, reach out to schedule a free consultation.
June 26, 2019
Accessibility and Section 508 Compliance: Planning, Testing, and Design
There are many different pieces to obtaining digital accessibility, and it can be an issue that needs clarification. Atlantic BT can help you feel confident that your site is in compliance with the latest accessibility regulations to reach a larger, more inclusive audience for your company.

But let’s take a step back and think about why it matters. Digital spaces are essential to the way we live our lives. “We” is a collective, inclusive word. So digital solutions wind up affecting the lives of every person who has access to the Internet. It is clear that designing web experiences for all users, regardless of ability or potential needs, is a crucial component of modern web design. Not to mention, it is also the law. Web accessibility is an element of your website that can not be ignored.

Why Should You Care About Website Accessibility?

Americans With Disabilities Act

While the ADA does not explicitly mention websites in its language, it does prohibit discrimination based on disability in places of public accommodation. As many organizations have discovered, the ADA has been applied to lawsuits over inaccessible websites. Perhaps one of the most famous was the National Federation of the Blind’s lawsuit against Target in the mid-2000’s, which led to Target settling the case for $6 million.

Section 508

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, is another law that many of our clients have their eyes on. Organizations that are subject to Section 508 have a clear requirement to meet accessibility standards. As of January 2018, these organizations are now required to make sure their websites meet the guidelines laid out in Level A and Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0).

Appeal to a Wider Audience

Aside from the law, there are benefits to making your website more inclusive.
- Provides key services to people with disabilities
- Increases the audience or customer base an organization can reach through its website
- Often makes sites easier for all users
And the need for accessibility continues to grow. According to the CDC, more than 20% of adults in the United States have a disability. That number is only likely to go up as the population ages.

How We Create Accessible Websites

Making accessible websites requires careful planning for success. Of course, not all of our clients have the same accessibility needs, so each is handled on a case by case basis. A typical project looks something like this:

Make an Accessibility Plan

During our discovery phase, we identify what accessibility requirements a client has. We will additionally scan for issues that we will need to mitigate later on. For example, a lot of old sites have videos and PDFs that no longer meet accessibility guidelines. Whatever the specifics may be, sticking to the initial audit ensures we know what goals we need to meet.

[pull_quote]Technology’s value lies in what it allows people to do. By designing inclusively and making digital products accessible to all users, we make our technology more valuable. We bring this perspective to every project which makes our products that much stronger.[/pull_quote] – Gordon Chadwick, User Researcher, CPACC

Design a Site Everyone Can Use

With requirements in hand, our designers apply styles that both function and delight. We’re long past the days when people thought designing an accessible website meant designing an ugly website.

[pull_quote]Accessibility isn’t just about blind users and screen readers, it is about everyone. Designing for all people encourages exploration of new ideas and solutions that lead to a better product overall.[/pull_quote] – Maris Hall, User Experience Designer, CPACC

Develop Using Best Practices

Building accessible sites doesn’t mean bolting on tons of features, it means following best practices for front end development. Clean, well-structured code is the foundation that allows screen readers and other assistive technology to function.

[pull_quote]When you start paying attention to the needs of all of your users, you begin to see how wonderfully diverse your audience is and you start looking for ways to give everyone a seat at the table. Since I’m usually working on implementation, I make sure the sites I build provide a good experience for users of assistive technologies like screen readers or magnifiers. [/pull_quote] – Mark Andrews, JavaScript Developer

Test and Verify

Testing is how we ensure that the work we did meets the goals we set during the planning stage of a project. Since meeting success criteria is of critical importance, our testers have several different ways to verify that we hit the mark. Testing methods include:
- Automated Testing – We use automated checkers to identify accessibility issues in your code.
- Expert Reviews – Certified accessibility professionals review behavior on your site.
- User Testing – Go straight to the source and test with users who have disabilities.
[pull_quote]There is a wealth of information on the web and everyone should have equal access to it. I make sure that we’re making that a reality by accounting for accessibility as we build things instead of after they get released.[/pull_quote] – Yolanda Hyman, Quality Assurance Manager

Start Feeling Good About Accessibility

It’s easy to understand why accessibility is important. However, uncovering potential issues and implementing changes can be a complicated process. Atlantic BT is happy to guide you through requirements and implement the necessary changes to make your website not only compliant, but accessible and inviting to all users. Reach out today for a free consultation or to get in touch with one of our accessibility experts.
June 3, 2019
What’s the Future of Municipal Sites?

When I think about cities and city services, I can’t help but see them as user experience projects. As a UX-oriented person, maybe that’s just me being a hammer and seeing a UX nail, but as more and more diverse citizens rely on these municipal sites, city governments will have to take UX seriously to serve citizens in the future.

This UX perspective should extend from city hall buildings to services in the community to digital spaces like social media and city websites. I’m not only saying this because I think it’s the right thing to do, it’s also what citizens are increasingly coming to expect. Research from Accenture has shown that people are coming to expect more and more from digital government. Over three quarters of US citizens expect the same or better service from government websites as they do from commercial sites, and that number is growing. Some government institutions like the State of Georgia are catching on to this trend, though that appears to be more the exception than the rule.

Since we know how important city websites are, my user research team and I are always watching where these municipal sites seem to be headed. This can be a hard thing to pin down because there is so much variation in the execution of city websites, but here are a few trends that stand out.

Municipal Sites Will Focus on Findability

One of the hardest challenges of municipal sites is creating effective navigation systems. These sites struggle because they need to meet the needs of many user segments as well as the needs of many internal departments. Pick a city site at random, and chances are you will notice critical information buried in deep site structures. Deep structures aren’t necessarily always bad, but designing navigation for municipal sites is especially challenging because of the abundance of jargon in field. This in mind, here are specific ways municipal sites can improve findability:

Search

Search is an obvious way to get around the problems of navigation and hard-to-find information. While this might seem behind the times to include, you’d be surprised how many cities don’t have basic search aids like suggestions, autocomplete and spell check, much less filters to narrow results. With that said, many cities have begun promoting search even more by placing the search bar right in the middle of their home page. Take Las Vegas, for example:

If you want to promote search on your municipal site, put it front and center.

Intelligent Assistants

Many cities (and other government agencies) have begun to develop Alexa integration to help people find information. I have to commend these agencies for forward thinking, as I think voice interfaces are here to stay. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder how useful some of these tools actually are. It’s hard to accurately assess the value of these applications without some user testing, but my first question is: Which applications of these tools provide value and which are just shallow attempts to adopt a trendy technology?

For example, one of the apps currently available advertises providing information about the names of people in official positions. Put simply, that seems mostly useless. Other apps report to provide information about trash collection or street closure schedules. These tasks seem more practical. For example, imagine being able to instantly check whether you need to put your recycling out without having to consult a screen. I believe these tasks are closer to the types of things that people actually use intelligent assistants for: repetitive, fact-based information needs as opposed to subjective questions dependent on individual opinion. If I sound cautious here, it isn’t because I don’t believe voice interfaces could be useful–they could be–I’m just trying to stress the importance of basing these interfaces on real user needs.

“Get It Done” Wizards

Another approach is to present a navigation alternative by allowing users to select a catered guide to locate a page. These guides are usually presented as step-by-step processes (with numbered steps and all). In my view, though these are often presented as task wizards, they are typically just alternative navigation schemes that use actions as categories rather than the loosely-persona based navigations that city sites usually employ.

San Diego’s Get it Done feature: Users make choices moving from left to right and are linked to a page in the final panel.

These features provide an alternative finding method for users who struggle with or are not inclined to use other methods. That said, if a municipal site relies on these special guides to perform routine tasks, why not simply redesign the site’s information architecture so all categories are labeled as common actions? Are they simply bolting on alternative routes to popular content instead of simply designing their navigations around it?

City Sites Will Get Serious about Content Strategy

As a critical component of any website design, content strategy will also become a major focus of municipal sites in the coming years. And many of these sites have a ways to go—city web pages with a strong vision of their own strategy are more the exception than the norm. Here are some important ways that leading municipal sites will align their content strategy with actual user needs:

Timely Topics That Matter to Many Users

Cities need to prioritize and produce content that matters to the majority of their citizens. This means focusing on the key content strategy question: What do users actually come to the city website for? The answers should guide municipal site owners in deciding what content to prioritize.

One mistake I often see on city websites is there is too much focus on news or announcements (such as a press release of the mayor’s speaking engagements) rather than directly actionable information. Too often these news stories dominate screen space on multiple pages despite being of interest to only a small subset of users.

This doesn’t mean the latest news isn’t useful content, but municipal sites must prioritize common user needs over pure timeliness. For example, Boston’s site prioritizes things like parking meter schedules, street cleaning, and trash schedules over the “typical latest news” information—though these schedules should of course be kept up to date.

Embrace Citizen Communication

There is no more direct way to prioritize user needs than listening to those users in real time. Every municipal site understands the need for web-friendly ways for citizens to contact city officials, so most cities have webforms to request service, report things, and contact municipal employees—in addition to just posting phone numbers.

But beyond these standard methods, how else can municipal sites embrace citizen communication? Many cities (including Wichita, Virginia Beach, and Boston) have chat capabilities that allow citizens to immediately contact city employees for answers. These live chat sessions not only allow users to quickly express their views, but also reinforce that the city leaders are making time for a real person to listen to them. Additionally, they open lanes of communication for users who are not inclined to make a phone call or can’t wait for an email response.

The chat function on the Virginia Beach municipal site makes it easy for citizens to get quick answers.

It’s also worthwhile to engage users on social media channels like Twitter or Facebook in order to rapidly circulate important information and get citizen feedback. There’s nothing wrong with building a following by posting jokes or pictures of cute animals in the city, as these followers will later be able to receive your updates when something serious is happening. In addition, cities should develop a plan for how they will respond to unforeseen events on social media. For example, the city of Toronto famously found themselves on the spot after a picture of dead raccoon on a city sidewalk went viral.

The Future of Municipal Sites Is Now

Of the predictions made in this post, very few of the trends discussed rely on cutting-edge technology. Instead of some sci-fi dreamscape driven by neural integration with digital systems or holographic imagery, the future of municipal sites will depend on strong search capabilities, user-centered content strategy, and social engagement—all best practices you can implement right now.

To learn more about how government websites can better serve citizens, please visit our government services page.

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April 16, 2019
Happiness Can be Found, Even in the Darkest of Web Projects

Institutional web projects are a beast. Revamping a website for Higher Education or Government is no easy feat. But, there are many business owners, CEOs, and executives who will say it was the best decision they ever made. Alas, there are just as many, if not more, who will report that their projects failed. It took too long, cost too much, and left them feeling disappointed or underwhelmed.

There are a lot of reasons why a new website might not succeed or the process will drag on longer than expected. But, the happiest web development clients always have a few traits in common. If you want to avoid the major pitfalls associated with putting a large website together, read on. Here are a few examples you should follow.

Begin With a Firm Set of Goals

All successful web development projects begin with a firm set of goals. These goals are measurable. There is another plan in place to assess if the website has met or exceeded expectations. Knowing the specifics of what you want your website to do, puts everyone in a good starting position. A strong development team can generate a plan that moves you in the right direction.

Without concrete goals, there is nowhere for your project to go. If there is a great deal of ambiguity about what would constitute success, then real results will be hard to see. Also crucial to your projects goals are the stakeholders. If they disagree on what the priorities should be, then no one will be able to move forward and be productive. It’s likely that the project outcome will be disappointing.

Get Participation From Many Levels of the Organization

You can’t handle complex web development in a completely top-down fashion. Senior executives might be responsible for approving the project. But, don’t forget to allow middle managers, employees, and users to have some input. They all have different perspectives that can be valuable. Creating your website based on the needs of those who access it, is the whole point. As a result, these insights may end up having the power to turn your project into a success or failure. With the participation of your users, you have a lot of great information to build on. Without them, how can you understand the ultimate purpose of your website?

Be Involved in the Development Process

Some new clients come to us with many assumptions. One of them is that we can work from start to finish with only a set of design concepts and a wish list. That would be nice. And flattering, even. But it never leads to happiness. That’s why a good web development team is going to dive into an extensive discovery phase. Every piece of information, forwards and backwards, is valuable.

Web design projects, however, are evolving things. There is a clear path for the team to follow, but new discoveries will occur along the way. Ongoing decisions will pop up and the direction may change here and there. This means that consistent communication is key to the success of your project. Timely and insightful feedback will help your team stay on track with your vision. As a result, you’re going to be more pleased with the work they produce.

Choose a Vendor Based on ROI

There will be many proposals that come your way (you lucky duck). But, as tempting as it may be, you don’t want to choose the one that looks too good to be true. Because it is too good to be true. The lowest investment? The fastest delivery time? Can we all be honest with each other, here? And do these things really matter?

Successful clients make their decisions based on different criteria. What matters to them is the returns they expect to reap from the project. It’s more important to pay attention to results. Minor differences in your short-term budget do not have the same long-term affects. Expenses and deadlines matter, of course. But, not as much as the quality of work you’ll receive in return.

Want to Make Sense of the Complex Web Development Process?

At Atlantic BT, we’re not fans of bombarding clients with technical jargon and computer gobbledygook. We help our clients find real-world answers to the questions and challenges they face. If you’re considering building or overhauling a large website, there is a way to make it easier. Schedule a free consultation with our team. We’ll be happy to address the issues that are on your mind. Even better, we’ll give you some customized recommendations to move forward with. That’s how we roll.

August 9, 2018