How a social media-like platform is helping state agencies streamline accessibility efforts
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Georgia recently adopted a customer relationship tool that aims to foster collaboration among agencies as they work toward making their online content compliant with federal accessibility rules.
State and local governments have approximately four months left to remediate their online content to be compliant with accessibility rules established by the Justice Department in April 2024. One Georgia agency is leveraging an artificial intelligence-enabled platform to help departments across the state streamline and coordinate their efforts to meet the new standards.
Under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, state and local governments must ensure web and mobile content are accessible to people whose disabilities could impact how they would otherwise engage with digital services and resources from public entities.
The compliance requirements mean state and local governments across the U.S. must comb through huge catalogues of material that could be subject to changes under the federal rule. That includes, for example, ensuring there is adequate color contrast of content, header hierarchy of text and readability for content screened by assistive devices, said Will Alford, director of content for the Georgia Technology Authority.
Doing so can be a heavy lift for agencies with limited staff and resources to remediate their web and app content, which can range from information about taxes to forms for critical services like benefits.
To help more than 100 agencies in Georgia comply with the federal rule, GTA deployed a customer relationship tool from Civic Roundtable last month that aims to streamline and expedite individual agencies’ work to comply with the accessibility standards.
“We just wanted to create an environment where people can share and help one another as opposed to just relying on [GTA] to figure out everything,” Alford said. Using the platform, GTA encourages agencies “to share what they’ve learned and who they’re working with … so that [information] can help everybody,” he explained.
The CRM platform serves as a centralized hub where agency staff can streamline communications and outreach with each other, manage government and vendor contacts and track engagement. More broadly, the tool helps break down silos across agencies and foster more innovative conversations among leaders striving to meet the accessibility standards.
Users can also leverage the platform like a “social media timeline” by posting resources, such as articles or content from meetings, or answering each other’s questions, Alford said.
“Facilitating that peer-to-peer conversation is usually what gets things off the ground [for leaders] to make faster, better decisions,” said Madeleine Smith, Roundtable’s CEO and co-founder.
By enabling more timely and accessible information sharing, agencies can cut down on their research and exploration time to find solutions and vendors to make necessary changes to their online content, she explained.
“Instead of making 15 phone calls, sending a bunch of emails or looking in nine places,” Smith said that with a consolidated platform like Civic Roundtable, staff can quickly “find what [they] need and get back to work faster.”