Zendesk Accessibility Plan - 2024 Progress Report

Publication date: May 31, 2024 General Zendesk is pleased to present the Zendesk Accessibility Plan - 2024 Progress Report. Should you require an alternate format of the contents of this Progress Report or a description of our feedback process, you may submit your request by email to the Senior Manager of Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at accessibility@zendesk.com. Zendesk will endeavor to respond to requests to make this Progress Report or a description of our feedback process available in print, large print, Braille, audio format, or an electronic format that is compatible with adaptive technology as soon as possible. As outlined in the Feedback section below, we have designated the following individuals to receive feedback on accessibility matters on behalf of Zendesk:
General accessibility feedback and requests for alternate formats: Senior Manager of Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Product-related accessibility feedback: Senior Director of Product Accessibility
Removal of barriers Zendesk has made progress in identifying barriers to accessibility, as further described below:







Area
Progress Notes


Employment

Progress removing or preventing barriers

Zendesk has begun research and discovery of accessibility training to educate and enable hiring managers on employment accessibility.
Zendesk is researching inclusive hiring practices, and is planning a Talent Acquisition assessment to review current practices and policies.
Zendesk is approximately halfway through reviewing human resources policies , with an accessibility lens to ensure inclusivity.
Zendesk continues to engage in ongoing consultation with Employee Community leaders to receive input into the development and implementation of employee accessibility standards.
Zendesk continues partnerships with external organizations including DisabilityIn.
Zendesk continues to engage in ongoing campaigns to increase awareness of accessibility features to enable employee productivity.
Zendesk has an accommodations process whereby an employee who requires assistive technology to complete their jobs can request it, such as a screen reader or zooming tool. Wherever possible, the software will be pre-installed for their first day.

Updates to timelines
Overall, progress continues to be made in advancing accessibility in employment, with a focus on removing barriers, promoting inclusivity, and fostering equal opportunities for persons with disabilities in the workforce.
New barriers identified
None

Long-term plans or activities

Continuous Review and Enhancement: Regular review and enhancement of employment accessibility standards to ensure they remain effective and responsive to evolving needs and best practices.
Promotion of Inclusive Workplaces: Ongoing efforts to promote inclusive workplaces through awareness campaigns, education, and outreach activities aimed at fostering a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Partnerships and Collaboration: Strengthening partnerships and collaboration with stakeholders, including employers, disability organizations, government agencies, and industry associations, to leverage expertise, resources, and collective efforts in advancing employment accessibility.
Policy Advocacy and Leadership: Advocacy for policies and practices that promote employment equity, diversity, and inclusion, both within the federal government and across the private sector, to create more opportunities for persons with disabilities to fully participate in the workforce.

International Collaboration: Collaboration with international partners and organizations to share knowledge, exchange best practices, and learn from global efforts to advance employment accessibility and disability rights.






Built Environment

Please refer to the “Procurement of facilities and site selection” section below.




Design and delivery of products made available to customers (including external-facing information communication technologies)

Progress removing or preventing barriers

In 2024, we continued our 3rd-party compliance program and published updated Accessibility Compliance reports for our Login/Signup experience, and our mobile SDKs for iOS. These and other reports are available on our public Product Accessibility Statement. All audits were based on WCAG 2.1 AA, and we are expanding scope to WCAG 2.2 AA in 2024.
Our teams made extensive progress remediating bugs identified in audits, including Agent Experience, the Guide Help Center and our end user messaging teams. Work continues in 2024, along with further refresh audits.
Our Product Dev organization invested heavily in automated testing for Accessibility, extending coverage to 8 new tech stacks meaning that all our end user and agent facing experiences now have improved QA. In addition to that we trained over 100 Zendeskers in manual testing best practices and extended our champion program to 50+ scrum teams.


Updates to timelines
Zendesk continued to release incremental Accessibility improvements to our end user, admin and agent facing products in 2023. Wherever possible these are documented in release notes and in subsequent updates to our Accessibility compliance reports.
New barriers identified

Zendesk publishes Accessibility Compliance Reports to inform customers and their employees on any updated exceptions around WCAG 2.1 AA compliance In 2023, we published updated audits for our Mobile SDKs (both iOS and Android) and for our login experience. Our audit program is ongoing and customers can expect both refreshes of previously published audits, as well as first audits for new product areas.
See below for more details on specific feedback that Zendesk has received, as well as actions we are taking to remediate.


Long-term plans or activities

Zendesk is fully committed to at minimum meeting WCAG 2.1 AA and exceeding it wherever possible to provide full usability for people with disabilities. All our activities are ongoing, and audits, remediation and quality improvements will continue in 2024.

In 2024, we are reviewing the latest version of the industry standard, WCAG 2.2 AA and increasing our quality target to meet it. In the meantime, we have already extended the scope of all new audits to include all new WCAG 2.2 AA criteria. The results will be documented in future Accessibility Compliance Reports so customers can review our gaps and progress.






Information and communication technologies (internal facing)

Progress removing or preventing barriers
Zendesk is establishing a core working group to identify and remediate barriers in information and communication technologies. The working group will improve how well new systems, including internally developed or externally procured hardware and software, meet modern accessibility standards and address accessibility barriers in legacy systems during maintenance, redevelopment, or renewal. Additionally, they will set up guidelines for posting accessible documents and media on the intranet and develop training and awareness sessions on Accessibility, Accommodations, and Adaptive Computer Technology (AAACT) for employees.
Updates to timelines
The core working group will be established by Q3 2024.

New barriers identified
None identified

Long-term plans or activities

Establish an evaluation process that allows Zendesk to outline and measure success metrics.





Other communication

Progress removing or preventing barriers
Zendesk is establishing a core working group to enhance accessibility across our offline communications. This group will identify key content for adaptation, incorporate inclusive language and imagery, and promote accessibility leaders within our communications. Additionally, they will make recommendations for training on accessible communication best practices for employees and managers, ensuring these are integrated into all public-facing materials.

Updates to timelines
The core working group will be established by Q3 2024.
New barriers identified
None identified

Long-term plans or activities

Establish and evaluation process that allows Zendesk to outline and measure success metrics





Procurement of goods and services

Progress removing or preventing barriers: Incorporated evaluation of suppliers progress into QBR; Productive meetings with DisabilityIN and Allyant with resources to leverage
Updates to timelines:

Supplier reference doc to be published Q2 2024 and incorporated into RFP in Q3 2024; incorporated into SIM onboarding during larger scale implementation Q1 2025
Outline process to onboard Allyant by end of 2024
Complete training development and lead training by end of 2024

New barriers identified: processes and language requirements from acquired entities are still under review

Long-term plans or activities: Redeploy SIM onboarding process and Supplier Portal with Coupa to streamline processes and communication with more accessibility features; share learnings with Suppliers




Procurement of facilities and site selection

Progress removing or preventing barriers: Zendesk is continuing to track areas of improvement related to accessibility within our current global office footprint.

Updates to timelines The development of written guidelines around accessibility requirements for our leased premises which would include relevant accessibility awareness and best practices is still in progress.
New barriers identified None identified, but review and development of guidelines is still in progress.

Long-term plans or activities Zendesk will continue to conduct periodic progress reviews against the plan, and will identify additional action items as needed.




Design and delivery of programs and services

Progress removing or preventing barriers

Zendesk has begun research and discovery of best practices for designing and delivering accessibility programs and services.
Zendesk continues to engage in ongoing consultation with Employee Community leaders to receive input into the design and delivery of programs and services.


Updates to timelines

Progress continues to be made in advancing accessibility in the delivery of our programs and services, with a focus on identifying best practices, removing barriers, and promoting inclusivity in the workplace.
Zendesk will conduct focus groups consisting of persons with disabilities in core service teams in Q4 of 2024.

New barriers identified
None identified
Long-term plans or activities

Establish a core-working group to periodically review the accessibility of Zendesk’s programs and services Coordinate with Employee Community leaders and our Internal Communications team to raise awareness on the importance of creating accessible programs and services among employee teams by developing options for operational employees to collect, respond to, and consider feedback from persons with disabilities.





Transportation

Zendesk does not offer transportation services and therefore has nothing to report under this heading.




Consultations Across all our accessibility efforts, Zendesk endeavors to consult with persons with disabilities during initial planning, as well as through the course of ongoing improvements when we strive to provide regular progress updates. We continually gather requirements and collect feedback from all our employees and stakeholders. This includes employees with disabilities, such as those represented in our Whole Self Employee Community and Product Accessibility team. During our product development process, we aim to involve persons with disabilities at multiple stages of our release cycle by:
Conducting internal testing with accessibility testing tools and assistive technology. Some of our employees are native users of these technologies.
Running third-party audits relative to the industry standard, WCAG 2.1 AA, with companies who employ many native users of assistive technology. This year we have upgraded our audits to WCAG 2.2 AA.
Collecting customer feedback before release, during EAP/betas and after release via help tickets, our customer community and regular research sessions. Please see below for a summary of received feedback.
Feedback All product feedback is first reviewed by our expert Product Accessibility team before being assigned to product teams with additional technical direction. We strive to prioritize user and customer feedback ahead of audit-driven enhancements and in 2023 introduced a tighter SLA for external feedback. Improvements are tracked by a coordinated quality program with regular reports provided to the highest levels of our product and engineering leadership. Examples of product feedback received in 2023 regarding our agent, admin and end user facing products include:
Requests for improved keyboard support. In response, we are continuing to provide additional keyboard shortcuts as well as improved support for screen reader keyboard commands.
Asks for additional assistive text on images. These requests are first verified by Product Accessibility and then passed to our documentation team. Before release, like all product text, the assistive text is then localized into all target languages.
Issues around certain interface components not responding correctly to standard screen reader commands. In these cases, the solution typically involves the correct application of the ARIA industry standard.
Areas where we can improve color contrast, both for text, for focus highlights and for interface controls. These are handled by our Design System team who are systematically upgrading our color contrast levels throughout our core component library.
Contact information To the attention of: Senior Manager of Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (for general feedback) or Senior Director of Product Accessibility (for product-related feedback) Email address: accessibility@zendesk.com Mailing address: 181 Fremont St. San Francisco, CA 94105 Phone number: 1 (888) 670-4887