PVH Makes Fashion Accessible for All
Winning the pitch to connect a new adaptive clothing brand with its target audience and change fashion.
Role: Associate Director, Content Strategy
Agency: POSSIBLE
Client: PVH
The challenge
PVH, one of the largest global apparel companies, and home to brands including Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, planned to launch an adaptive clothing brand in 2018. As an adaptive brand, PVH committed to AAA-level content accessibility — the highest standard, affecting all content.
Working with team members of all disciplines, I led content accessibility for our solutions.
The Standards
The site will be structured and built according to the highest level of international accessibility standards.
In the United States, this is ADA Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. § 794d) that ensure that federal electronic and information technology is accessible to persons with disabilities. Section 508 relies on international standards for specifics.
The international standards are set and maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (WC3) governing body as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). AAA is the highest of three levels of accessibility conformance.
the solution
As the content strategist on the pitch, I needed to:
Explain the technical details to support the amount of strategic, creative, and developmental work — and costs — to succeed and be fully compliant
Infuse the prototypes and proposals with valid accessibility features
aaa accessibility requirements
Accessibility standards effect everything.
All text
All use of color
Website development methods and technology
Mobile use and features
For the pitch, I created one-page overviews for each part of our site designs to explain the AAA-level accessibility requirements for each:
The Prototypes
As the UX lead and creative director began sketching, I reviewed sketches and added accessibility instructions and features that would become part of the UX and UI:
messaging architecture and copy
As the design and development teams began creating prototypes, I worked with my senior copywriter. For each prototype, I pulled source content and called out what the final copy would need -- from ideas on voice to how accessibility requirements would affect copy. (Luckily, she and I had already worked on three large projects together, so our short-hand communication was well-developed!)
The Results
PVH loved the experience and the inclusive, specific accessibility features included.
POSSIBLE won the project!