NetCentric Technologies - CommonLook

The software below has been customized to adhere to Oklahoma Accessibility policy.  

PAW – is designed for the content author.  The user needs to have no knowledge of Accessibility or PDF.  It is an ad in for Microsoft Word 2007 that allows the user to create accessible section 508 compliant PDFs as simple as a spell check.  There are two versions of PAW, standard and enhanced.  The enhanced version allows you to create accessible fillable forms.

Pricing for PAW starts at $ 99.00 per seat for standard and $ 148.50 for enhanced. I don’t think I mentioned that we will have a version of PAW available for Power Point and Excel by the end of this year.

http://www.net-centric.com/products/PAW.aspx

CommonLook is the  market-leading quality assurance product is a plug- in for Adobe Acrobat. It is a comprehensive test and remediation tool for Section 508 compliance. The product offers a methodical approach to testing and remediation of PDF documents. Some of product’s features include the following: dynamic drag and drop capability to remediate PDF structure, automated generation of speak text for tables and forms, visual manipulation of PDF structure (tables, lists, forms) enhanced support for table testing and remediation and automatic remediation of common problems such as text running together, repeated characters and hyphenation.  CommonLook provides a facility that automatically identifies the accessibility issues in a PDF and allows the user to correct these one issue at a time.

CommonLook has two pricing models.

This first is a  server based that comes with a counter.  Entry level pricing starts at $ 600.00 per license at a minimum of 5 licenses. 

Each license can be deployed on up to 5 desktops, therefore you can have CommonLook on 25 desktops if you purchase 5, however only 5 can be licenses can be used at one time. This model needs to be renewed annually.

The requirement for this are:

Windows Vista, XP or 2000 and Adobe® Acrobat® Standard or Professional 6.0 or later. Windows Internet Explorer 6.0 or later is required. For concurrent licensing, you will also need a licensing server machine. This can be any PC running Windows Vista, XP or Windows 2003 Server.

The other option is traditional licensing or our perpetual licensing model.  Pricing start at $999.00 per license with no minimum.  The only ongoing costs would be maintenance and support; that is calculated at 20 %.

http://www.net-centric.com/products/cl_s508_adobe.aspx

ECMF

This enterprise product enables management and testers to effectively measure and manage the state of Section 508 compliance of their PDF holdings. Some of the product’s features includes the spidering capability to automatically locate PDF documents on the enterprise’s website(s) and networks, automated scheduled verification of PDF content to provide reports on the compliance status by reported non-compliance incident,  instant update of the compliance status as documents are remediated, desktop or browser-based access to enterprise compliance data, highly scalable enterprise database to support future growth, integrated verification and remediation using the CommonLook technology on the client and verification and remediation workflow capability to assign files to specific users for remediation and to track their status. Ad-hoc reports can be generated using third party reporting tools.

http://www.net-centric.com/products/cl_pdf_enterprise_framework.aspx

Service: Accessibility Consulting and Training Services

NetCentric’s accessibility consulting services are designed to assist organizations to achieve their accessibility objectives. NetCentric’s accessibility specialists have the in-depth knowledge of international standards and best-practices, the hands-on expertise and the market-leading tools to customize a solution that can:

• Assess an organization's state of compliance with the relevant accessibility standards (e.g. section 508 or W3C WCAG P1 and P2) and best practices.
• Devise an accessibility plan that describes the steps an organization needs to take to achieve their accessibility objectives including budgets and timelines.
• Propose efficient and cost-effective ways to make accessibility an integral part of the document creation and approval workflows.
• Remediate websites, PDF documents and other electronic documents to ensure the electronic information produced by the organization meets the requirements defined by their accessibility standards and best practices.
• Design and deliver a training program that can help staff gain the know-how to meet accessibility objectives on an ongoing basis.

Depending on the accessibility objectives, the NetCentric team can engage the organization in a number of ways, including:

Accessibility Assessment: Our approach is to start with an automated scan of the current target documents and websites combined with an in-depth analysis of accessibility issues using a statistically significant random sample of documents and web pages. The resulting Assessment Report describes the current state of accessibility in the organization and provides information on key accessibility metrics.

Accessibility Panning: In addition to assessing the current state of electronic document accessibility, our experts can develop an Organizational Accessibility Plan that:

• Analyzes the document creation, approval and publishing process and recommends changes to make accessibility an integral part of the workflow in ways that meet your objectives while maximizing effectiveness and minimizing cost.
• Assesses accessibility training needs and recommends a suitable training program to meet accessibility objectives.

PDF Section 508 Verification and Remediation Services

The verification and remediation services provide organizations with a highly-accurate, comprehensive and cost-effective way to achieve Section 508 compliance for their PDF holdings.  The benefits of the services include the following:

• Best-of-breed service performed by expert resources using the industry-leading CommonLook tool.
• Accurate results based on a thorough analysis of the PDF structure (as opposed to doing a simple test using screen readers).
• Comprehensive testing for all the federal Government section 508 standards related to 1194.22 (Web-based intranet and internet information and applications).
• Quick turn-around.

NetCentric’s verification and remediation services include the following:

• Review Scripts; verify and fix inaccessible script functionality (for example functionality dependant on the mouse).
• Mark items as lists. We create list tags and list item tags within which we put the text.
• Review form elements. Change any radio buttons (inaccessible by definition), to mutually exclusive checkboxes.
• Fix Content Order view.
• Fix Tags view.
• Verify/fix tabbing order.
• Properly tag callouts and other annotations.
• Run CommonLook plug-in for Adobe Acrobat on each document, identify and fix accessibility problems. Generate a Section 508 conformance certificate for each document.
• Test each document with JAWS, or, at your option, Readout loud of Acrobat

Often testers or authors simply use a screen reader to test PDF’s assuming mistakenly that this is sufficient. At NetCentric, we view this approach as unacceptable as it exposes you to potential complaints and litigation due to non-compliance with the legislation.

“Radio buttons”, inaccessible by definition, is an area where we excel. Since Checkboxes are accessible, we simulate the functionality of radio buttons by creating mutually exclusive checkboxes. This involves removing radio buttons, adding checkboxes and adding scripts for every checkbox so that once clicked, it would uncheck all other checkboxes in the same group.

Another area where we differentiate ourselves is in our handling of lists. When screen readers encounter a list tagged as a “list”, it states that it is about to read a list of elements. Frequently, testers and authors do not mark lists as such, and therefore they will not be identified by screen readers as a list, but rather as a paragraph. While, strictly speaking, this may not be part of Section 508, it nevertheless provides for enhanced accessibility to people with disabilities.

Pricing obviously varies depending on the amount of work and complexity of the documents.

Training is priced separately at $ 4,000 per course for up to 10 people plus Travel and Living depending on location.  For smaller numbers we may be able to reduce the price depending on location and timing. Payback for the investment is 2 weeks of use of the tool.  

Regards,

Jeff Howcroft
Account Executive
NetCentric

Tel 202 715 2222
Mobile 202 489 5083
Fax 202.434.8707
jhowcroft@net-centric.com
www.net-centric.com
NetCentric Technologies