ABOUT

BBC Task Concept :
CATS: Accessibility for BBC staff-facing systems.

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The BBC has many software systems that staff use to do their jobs, and has a legal obligation to ensure that disabled people can use the systems they need in their role.
To support this, there is a process of identifying, testing, and auditing software systems across the BBC. Each system is allocated a system owner who is responsible for facilitating this. The systems are checked against the BBC’s standard Assistive Technology software – the core of these being JAWS, Zoomtext and Dragon. This process is run by a small team in the BBC who manage Assistive Technology (AT). They wish to rebuild CATS (Catalogue for Accessibility Tested Systems) - their online management tool.
As well as a place to track all the test results for systems, two key use-cases of the system are:

• Let individuals/team managers check if the systems they/their team use for work are accessible
• Let systems owners check the systems grading, download test reports, and request tests for new or
updated systems that they are responsible for CATS allows users to login with their staff details, search for systems, check if these systems have been tested against the standard Assistive Technologies, and download test reports. Tested systems receive a grade of A – full passed; B – partial pass and improvements are planned; C – partial pass and no
improvements are planed; or D – failed. There are about 2500 systems listed in CATS at the moment, with that number growing and changing as new system are introduced or decommissioned.

The AT team would like to introduce new features, and make CATS more usable for all. They have identified that System Owners are struggling to find and manage the systems they are responsible for, this might vary from 1 to 100, depending on the type of system it is.

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The Task:
1. Investigate how to improve and redesign the system, some guesses and assumptions may be needed in order to do this.
2. The design approach to this challenge. What would you do? In what order? How long would you need? What user participation would be useful? Who else would you involve, and when? You will be able to speak with end-users, system owners, the AT team, and the development team at any point in the project.
3. Design a feature for the system owner to make it easier to find and mange the systems they’re responsible for.