Digital inclusion. It is not a new concept, yet, it is a concept that is now “hot on the shelves” and being embraced by global enterprises and multinational organizations. It is a concept that goes beyond the traditional “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” programs. It is about enabling all people to contribute to and benefit from the digital economy. Including everyone means we must level the digital playing field, especially for people that access technology and the internet differently than the “mainstream persona”. In the age of digital transformation, this mainstream persona is non-existent.
Your users are different. They engage with your product differently. They enjoy retrieving the content differently. They use various devices to interact with your product (mobile phone, desktop computer, tablet, assistive technology, etc.).
It is time we set aside that “mainstream” persona and begin designing and developing for people of diverse backgrounds and different capabilities. That is, let’s begin designing and developing for keyboard only users, assistive technologies users, users that may need different color contrast, etc. etc. This, actually, taps into universal design and development principles of which accessible design and development is one of these principles to follow.
Meet Nadav Bernstein and Tamar Schapira, two entrepreneurs working in the accessibility space for over twelve years. Tamar describes herself as an ambitious, motivated and results driven social entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in management and business development. She and her husband, Nadav are passionate about identifying social problems and creating solutions that have the potential to become successful businesses and positively impact society.
Prior to developing SenseIT in late 2018, the entrepreneur couple owned an accessibility consulting firm working with clients in various sectors to ensure digital accessibility specifically for digital products defined as ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS). They worked endless hours testing and auditing software systems, e-commerce sites, complex web applications for accessibility. The process was agonizing. Mainly for their clients. But also for their team.
The agony is due, in part, to the time and dedication of both the client and team. Yet, it was also a time consuming and tedious process to ensure that a product was tested, remediated, and maintained, regularly. Tamar and Nadav understood that this process was inefficient and searched for ways to automate their work. It took years of research and development to get to where they are today.
SenseIT was founded to ensure that digital accessibility can be implemented as early as possible in the product development cycle. The company developed the product with the product manager and developer in mind. SenseIT is a Software as a Service automated testing platform that emulates the user with disability experience. This allows SenseIT to detect critical accessibility barriers since the tool knows to test a digital application from the user’s perspective.
The company offers organizations the ability to test their product (website or application) early in development covering up to 70% of the requirements. SenseIT is an enterprise grade solution for software companies that are required to comply with global digital accessibility regulations. The product is built by subject matter experts and software engineers seeking to create an efficient and reliable solution for testing, remediating, and maintaining digital accessibility.
SenseIT integrates into the development system, meaning, the platform can test for accessibility before a product is released to market. The time and cost savings are enormous for today’s organizations that are undergoing or underwent digital transformation. Whether the client is developing software in a highly regulated space such as the airline and hotel industry; or, our clients are selling to enterprises and organizations that require digital accessibility compliance (such as the financial and government sector), SenseIT meets their need.
SenseIT is looking to partner with companies that develop software solutions for the travel industry and have an interest in ensuring that these products are accessible, always. For more information and partnership inquiries, please reach out to tamar@senseit360.com