https://www.americancityandcounty.com/wp-content/themes/acc_child/assets/images/logo/footer-logo.png
  • Home
  • Co-op Solutions
  • Hybrid Work
  • Commentaries
  • News
  • In-Depth
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Podcast
  • Resources & Events
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • IWCE 2022
    • How to Contribute
    • Municipal Cost Index – Archive
    • Equipment Watch Page
    • American City & County Awards
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Privacy Statement
    • Terms of Service
American City and County
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Co-op Solutions
  • Hybrid Work
  • Commentaries
  • News
  • In-Depth
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Podcasts
  • Resources/Events
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers/eBooks
    • IWCE 2022
    • How to Contribute
    • American City & County Awards
    • Municipal Cost Index
    • Equipment Watch Page
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Stament
    • Terms of Service
  • newsletter
  • Administration
  • Economy & Finance
  • Procurement
  • Public Safety
  • Public Works & Utilities
  • Smart Cities & Technology
  • Magazine
acc.com

Hybrid Work


Work is not where you go. It’s what you do. In today’s hybrid work world, it is no longer enough to solve for the challenges of remote work or support a safe office re-entry. It’s about finding solutions to not just recover in the face of change, but to thrive and innovate. Empower your workers at home, in the office, or anywhere.

Pixabay

News

With the digital evolution, equity in accessibility is of utmost importance

With the digital evolution, equity in accessibility is of utmost importance

  • Written by Andy Castillo
  • 23rd May 2022

When historians write the history books of tomorrow, they’ll note a sharp divide in the timeline: Pre-pandemic and what came after. This chasm spans industry and locality, impacting just about every aspect of society, such as the way governments interact with constituents in the digital realm.

Before stay-at-home orders and mask mandates were issued, residents conducted business just about exclusively at their local town office. A clerk or administrator would give them the correct form and guide them through the process. Then everything shifted online, and many municipalities realized their websites lacked an important aspect: engagement.

“Prior to the pandemic, a lot of agencies saw the website as a file repository,” said Chris Wollesen, web content management supervisor at the Illinois Department of Innovation and Technology during Adobe’s annual Experience Makers Government Forum earlier this month.

“Or if they did organize it, they did so in a way that made sense to them … not to citizens who were looking for information.”

Now two years on, government websites have become an integral part of public business—and their focus has evolved into more of a service mindset. Instead of a one-directional tool, they’ve become a comprehensive means to help constituents in a tangible way, according to Chris Lim, national practice director of state and local government at Adobe, and moderator of the round-table discussion “Bridging the digital divide with effective content strategy.”

For the last few decades, “government websites have been more of a monologue,” Lim said. But the pandemic delivered “a shift in how (constituents) expect the government to deliver information to them.”

And with this change, there’s also been a shift in the way internet technology managers quantify success. Before, success was tracked the same way businesses in the private sector determine success: by documenting website clicks. The pandemic revealed a key difference between the public and private sector.

“Oftentimes, that is a horrible metric, because it means people are lost and just clicking around,” Wollesen said. “Now, they use things like how many forms have been submitted.”

At its heart, the change has put end-users into the forefront—and that doesn’t just mean residents looking for the latest parks and recreation event.

“It wasn’t just the public who only had the digital channel to access online services, but government colleagues, equally, were accessing their work through the digital channel,” said David Thorpe, vice president of strategy and consulting at Publicis Sapient, a Massachusetts-based digital consulting firm. Digital tools suddenly had to work two ways. 

“Citizens, the public, they wanted outcomes,” Thorpe said. Beyond engagement, the public expected a transactional interaction with government websites—they wanted to easily pay their excise tax, update local voting and register their new pandemic-puppy.

Government websites became portals for an emerging interface of public administration, which experts expect will be increasingly digital.

At this unprecedented precipice, as governments grapple with the best way to enhance their agency’s digital presence, Christina Adams, digital accessibility software engineer at Siteimprove, a multinational software-as-a-service company, noted an overarching goal that should guide all other implementations: accessibility.

“We need to make equitable content for our end users—adding inclusive strategies and techniques,” Adams said. “We need to communicate that information in an inclusive way, so we need to move that arc. Just like you’re thinking about engagement, you need to think about access for all of your users.”

Inclusivity in accessibility needs to permeate every decision, and it needs to be implemented as early in the process as possible—to ensure equity as much as to save taxpayer’s money. As an example of why it needs to be thought through from the get-go, Adams used as an analogy an organization that commissioned a video project. Paying for a third-party company to add closed-captions and a transcript after the fact would be much more expensive than if they were included from the start.

“Accessibility and inclusion is not something that is an add on or another thought, it sound be a hallmark of good content—making your content accessible and available makes it better,” said Wollesen.

As governments continue to evolve into the digital era, making sure that every voice is heard, and that websites are equally accessible by everyone, is of utmost importance.

“There’s nothing that degrades a user’s confidence more than a bad user experience,” Adams said.

Tags: homepage-featured-1 homepage-featured-2 homepage-featured-4 Administration Smart Cities & Technology Hybrid Work Administration Smart Cities & Technology News

Most Recent


  • public sector
    Generational differences present an opportunity to reinvent public sector service delivery
    As major technology companies have transformed the ideal customer experience into instantaneous “one-click” services, the public sector has been challenged to keep pace. As a result, government organizations must meet the changing expectations of Americans with faster, simpler, 24/7 services. Government is ingrained in the fabric of our lives, including the water we drink, the […]
  • Report: Local and state governments are facing a retention crisis; the worst could be yet to come
    When the pandemic struck in 2020, public retention was hit hard: jobs in local government plummeted by 8.5 percent; state employment dropped by 4.4 percent. Two years later, local and state government jobs have rebounded by about half—to 4.1 and 1.9 percent below pre-pandemic levels respectively, according to a new report from Mission Square Research […]
  • employees
    Oklahoma City puts the focus on employees when implementing changes in office technology
    The City of Oklahoma City (OKC) is no stranger to growing pains. Like so many cities and local governments facing budget, resource and time constraints, the fastest-growing city in Oklahoma has, at times, had to do more with less. But despite this, we’ve remained committed to advancing our city forward and putting our 5,000+ employees […]
  • Amid tech labor shortage, outsourcing digital services could provide relief
    The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated tech and digitization globally, forever changing the way local governments conduct daily business, along with the expectations of constituents. Over the last two years, smart city plans have increased in popularity; services like tax bill payments and licensing have mostly shifted into the digital realm; and town offices evolved into comprehensive […]

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your American City and County account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • What it Takes to Build a Winning Esports Program
  • Report: Governments stand to benefit from 'metaverse' and its associated technologies
  • community engagement
    How to ensure your community engagement isn’t ableist
  • How redevelopment revitalizes a community

Twitter


AmerCityCounty

Seamless Cooperative Experience Saves Indiana City Exponentially in Time and Money dlvr.it/SSxp95

27th June 2022
AmerCityCounty

10 best large cities for fishing dlvr.it/SSxbSZ

27th June 2022
AmerCityCounty

Generational differences present an opportunity to reinvent public sector service delivery dlvr.it/SSxbN7

27th June 2022
AmerCityCounty

Report: Local and state governments are facing a retention crisis; the worst could be yet to come dlvr.it/SSnmS7

24th June 2022
AmerCityCounty

Amid an unprecedented increase in federal spending, cities and counties stand to benefit from partnerships dlvr.it/SSkGBn

23rd June 2022
AmerCityCounty

Governments using technology to harness data and improve decision-making dlvr.it/SSk3H0

23rd June 2022
AmerCityCounty

Infrastructure highlighted by city leaders as top priority in analysis of 60 mayoral addresses dlvr.it/SSgBck

22nd June 2022
AmerCityCounty

Oklahoma City puts the focus on employees when implementing changes in office technology dlvr.it/SSfyns

22nd June 2022

Newsletters

Sign up for American City & County’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about local governments.

Resale Insights Dashboard

The Resale Insights Dashboard provides model-level data for the entire used equipment market to help you save time and money.

Municipal Cost Index

Updated monthly since 1978, our exclusive Municipal Cost Index shows the effects of inflation on the cost of providing municipal services

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital audience? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • IWCE’s Urgent Communications
  • IWCE Expo

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us

FOLLOW American City and County ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X