Ep 11, S3 - Beyond Compliance: The Accessibility Partnership Playbook - Don Torrez

Michelle - Intro: This podcast is for city communications teams and video professionals in government. We talk about expanding service delivery with video and streaming, media accessibility, gear, broadcast and streaming workflows and more. It's all right here on the Government Video Podcast. Episode Sponsor: The Government Video Podcast is brought to you by MediaScribe from Tightrope Media Systems. Tightrope believes accessibility should never be an afterthought. It should be built in from the start. MediaScribe's award-winning captioning and audio descriptions is your end-to-end solution for accessible government video. Visit mediascribe.ai to start your free trial today. Michelle Alimoradi: Welcome back to the "Government Video Podcast." Today, we're talking about what it takes to really deliver government video that is accessible. On this show, we look at the real-world decisions public agencies face as they work to reduce risk, meet ADA requirements, and better serve their communities with their digital media. I'm Michelle Alimoradi, and I'm your host this week. When accessibility compliance comes up, many government teams quickly realize this isn't just a technical challenge. It's also a personnel challenge. And since we can't suddenly hire or train all the subject matter experts we need internally, it soon becomes a partnership challenge, or what could be framed as a partnership opportunity. And no matter how you frame it, you're faced with questions about vetting vendors, what are the partnership expectations and responsibilities, and how are all these systems you've put in place getting supported moving forward? When all of these things surface at the same time, where do you start? How do you define the strategy, the scope, the accountability? Today, we're using digital accessibility compliance as a use case to talk about partnership management and how governments work with vendors, what tends to go wrong, what strong partnerships actually look like in practice. And lucky for us, our guest today brings deep experience in this part of the work. So joining us today is Don Torrez, a web accessibility consultant who has helped to solve accessibility issues with over 450 organizations in local government and commercial business. Don has collaborated with the Department of Justice, the Office of Civil Rights, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal ADA Organization, and the Small Business Administration. Don has spoken at dozens of conferences across the country and has directed a wealth of webinars and podcasts focused on web and software accessibility. And Don is also a certified accessibility coordinator at the University of Missouri and the Great Plains ADA Center. Don, thank you so much for being here today. I'm excited to dive into this topic with you. Don Torrez: It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. I'm really passionate about this, so I'm excited for the opportunity to join you in talking about this. Michelle Alimoradi: Yeah. And you, you know, you-- sounds like you make the rounds on the, on the podcast, so we're really glad that we could bring you on to ours. Before we get into our main topic of discussion today, we want to learn a little bit more about you. So, Don, how did you get into this work, and what drew you to it? Don Torrez: Sure. I worked for a large software provider that served local government, and I negotiated partnerships. I led the partnership program. We started getting a lot of questions about accessibility, and we didn't have anyone on staff that really knew anything about accessibility. So I just dove into the deep end and, and started listening to our clients, but I also went to a lot of conferences and really listened to people with disability talk about their experiences. And I worked to get a certification by the ADA, and after that I just started working with organizations. And I worked with about 500 organizations, most of them local governments, to solve accessibility issues. Michelle Alimoradi: Well, that sounds like the perfect lead up to what we're gonna talk about today. Was there a specific, early project or experience that shaped how you think about setting expectations, managing partnerships with government teams now? Don Torrez: Yeah. The, one of our first, the first projects I had, I was working with a local government partner who was under investigation from the Department of Justice, and it wasn't initially a software issue. They had a facilities problem that led to a Department of Justice investigation, and one of the things about the DOJ is they'll widen the scope. And so the software that we supported was under investigation even though the complaint didn't start there. So we had two calls a week for a couple years talking about our accessibility, and what I learned was it's so crucial to fundamentally build accessibility so that you don't have to work on the back end. It's so much higher visibility and more difficult to do if you don't do this in the original creation. Michelle Alimoradi: You know, that's actually something that, that hasn't come up in my conversations about this yet. Like this idea that you could be being investigated for a physical space issue, and then suddenly now everything's under scrutiny, right? I think that's, that's something that people should really be aware of as this deadline moves closer. So you've been in this space for a long time. You've stayed in this space. What keeps you invested in helping governments navigate these complex requirements and the partnerships that go with it? Don Torrez: Well, I'm passionate about all involved. It's really a situation where government leaders want to do the right thing. They don't have to be convinced that accessibility's important. But generally, a government leader's wearing a lot of hats. They're in charge of media, they're in charge of social media, they're in charge of all kinds of participation as well as the website, and accessibility is just one more thing for them to deal with. Not that that's their attitude, but that's the reality is there are not enough hours in a day, not enough expertise, and not enough dollars to really support this. So it's difficult to navigate. And then inside that, you have people with disability who really want to participate in government, and there's often obstacles in the way that make it really difficult for them to. So to be able to come together and, and solve the problem which helps everyone involved, I'm passionate about that. I just love being a part of that. Michelle Alimoradi: And I love that you take a moment to kind of acknowledge that emotional aspect of it, right? Like, folks are already wearing so many hats, and now, like, a lot of initial reaction despite, you know, caring about public service might be like, "Oh boy, here's another hat I have to put on." You know? Like, "I can't wear another hat." But then also having that competing, like, desire to really try to serve as- all the residents that you can, especially the ones that are experiencing the largest hurdles. And so, you know, I think being able to at least have that initial first step where you're like, "Okay, it's okay to delegate this," right? "It's okay to, like, find somebody that's already wearing this hat to help me work with, work with this." Don Torrez: Absolutely Michelle Alimoradi: I, I like that perspective on it. How do you balance oversight and delegation, speaking of all these hats we're wearing, when you're working with third parties? How should a team work to gain efficiency without worrying about, you know, neglecting any aspect of, of the compliance goals? Don Torrez: That's a really good question. As, as a government leader, you own the vision, so you can't really outsource the oversight. But you can delegate the tactics, and really partners can help you do tactical things, you know, help you with captions on videos, help you with making documents accessible, help you with the website, and hopefully train you. So ultimately, as a government leader, you own the accessibility and the oversight, but you can absolutely delegate the things that are hard to become an expert at. And that's really been a relief for a lot of local government leaders that they don't have to do everything, but they can delegate the right things. Michelle Alimoradi: Yeah, and I like that idea of thinking of it as, you know, a journey where maybe eventually there's a handoff if, you know, people on staff have enough training. But that you can think of like the initial setup and, and the training itself coming from a partner, and that's something that you don't have to organize. It could just be a part of what that partner does, right? What are some of the major things that you've seen partnerships help correct? Don Torrez: That's a good question because most local government leaders, they don't code, they don't know the technical aspects of it, but they also like help with scope, first of all. How big of a problem do I have? And partners can really help you with that. There's great scanning tools and, and human auditors who can tell you where your large problems are. Documents, most local governments have thousands of PDF documents that aren't accessible, and they need help with those. Captions or videos, I mean, that's the center of what we're talking about. If you don't have those in place, then you really need help with knowing how big of a problem you have and how to tackle that. So partners can really help you correct the tactics. There are experts out there, so you don't have to be an expert, and they can really hold your hand and help you along in a field that they do all-- that they solve all the time. Michelle Alimoradi: Yeah. I like that with the tactics, and I also think, have you seen in your experience folks leaning on partners also for, like, the design that, you know, will lead to implementation? For instance, like we've got all these inaccessible documents. Is that how we want to continue to distribute information moving forward? Like, are-- Have you seen people look to partners to help with an entirely new vision, um, you know, so you don't have, like, things like document remediation come up as an issue? Don Torrez: That's a really good point, and I'm glad you brought it up because if you do things right in the first creation, it's so much easier and really sets you up for success. If you're designing a new website, if you've just started the process of putting videos on your clerk software or your website, if you have a document problem, you can start creating things in the right way right now, and that helps you with so much that, you know, if you do it later, it really, really hurts you. So there's this concept of shift left and just start thinking about accessibility right away instead of as a project. And if you build this into your DNA, then you're doing the right thing and helping people to access your programs and services without a lot of rework Michelle Alimoradi: Yeah, I like that. And, you know, we've kind of talked about that topic a little bit about accessible design and also about, you know, just reimagining things moving forward instead of feeling like you have this daunting, you know, huge pile of remediation work to do. But we haven't really taken this angle on it, which is that you could even lean on partners to help you with that design, right? Like, that isn't something you have to take on yourself. You could have somebody who has the expertise in this help you do that. While you're thinking strategy, you're thinking service goals, someone else can, like, put that in, into their expertise. Like you said, these folks on, on the government teams, they're not coders oftentimes. There's a lot of subject matter, like on the technical side that, that these teams don't have. So I really like that we're kind of-- we're merging all of these problems or, you know, all of these opportunities for improvement, into something that can be leveraged with a partnership. Don Torrez: It makes your life so much easier Michelle Alimoradi: Right. Just like, as long as you, you start in this mindset of like, "I don't have to do this alone", right? Don Torrez: Yeah. That's comforting. Michelle Alimoradi: Yeah. Can you share an example, not gonna name any names here, where unclear expectations between a government team and a vendor cause problems? 'Cause we, we really wanna make sure we're entering into, you know, a strong arrangement out the gate. Where-- Was there anything missing at the start? Don Torrez: I'm glad we have an opportunity to talk about this because you should see a vendor or a partner as someone who can walk with you down the path of accessibility. And there's some expectation sometimes that there's a quick fix that can make you accessible right away, and there are even vendors who talk about this. You know, one line of code can make you accessible, and that can be a problem. Some of the vendors and some of their clients have been sued, and they're generally not sued for lack of accessibility. They're sued for false promises and false advertising. So if you think of this as something that you can really make a dent on right away, but also a, a journey to think more about accessibility and be more accessibility, you're looking for a partner who shares that philosophy and is looking to help you make a commitment and a real, progress until you get there. Michelle Alimoradi: So what I'm hearing is red flags are like promising, "Hey, you're gonna be 100% compliant," you know, full checklist done at the click of a button, those kinds of promises. Don Torrez: Yes Michelle Alimoradi: Or also just the fact that, it's a, it's a one-size-fits-all situation, as opposed to something that requires an audit, you know, an evaluation, and a, and a catered, you know, plan of action, a bespoke plan of action for what you've currently got on your plate. I think that's a really important thing for people to add to their evaluation checklist. And I think another aspect besides clear expectations is also overreach, right? 'Cause, you know, as the government team, ultimately everything comes back to you, right? If anything's not, in order. So what does early progress look like? How do we make sure that the partnership is working, ahead of time and that everybody's clear about, you know, where their responsibilities lie? Don Torrez: I l- I think of this two ways. I would measure early progress first by, am I becoming more accessible right away? So early progress, the partner should make a dent right away. And because if you've really got a big problem, you should be able to have some low-hanging fruit there. But secondly, you should be learning more. You should have a plan with your partner that says, "At what point will I need you less and have more of this built into the DNA to make it better?" If you have, for example, a video captioning partner for accessibility, you will probably always need that partner, but you should be able to make progress in ways that make you less dependent on them. For documents, you probably have a big problem making all of your documents compliant. But if you start right now, every new document you make is compliant, you're going to have a much smaller problem in the future. So I would ask them, you know, the vendors that you choose or the partners you use, what does the future state look like where I'm doing more of this and you're doing less? Michelle Alimoradi: Right. 'Cause at the end of the day, there's always a human component in this accessibility journey, right? So eventually those humans should become the ones on your staff is what you're saying, I Don Torrez: Yeah, that's exactly right, is, this is-- that should be our true north, is that accessibility is a human issue. Michelle Alimoradi: Right. I think that's, that's the thing that we always have to keep in mind from the start, is that we're using tools to reduce the amount of human time that goes into this. But the end of the day, that quality control is always gonna fall back to, to a human somewhere. And I like the idea of thinking that you're, you're sort of weaning yourself off of, leaning on external teams if you can, right? And I Don Torrez: To the extent you can Michelle Alimoradi: yeah, everybody's situation is different. There's level- different levels of complexity. And I think that it might vary a little bit based on the size and budget of your team. But that's always a good thing to return back to in your, in your evaluation of success. I really like that. Hey, if you're enjoying this podcast, you might also like our webinars. We host live sessions where we dig deeper into topics that matter to media makers and government, like accessibility, compliance, automation, all of it. Join us live to ask questions or browse our on demand library whenever it fits your schedule, click in the link in the show notes to check out what's available. Michelle Alimoradi: Looking back at your work, what's one lesson about partnerships that teams learn later than they should? What do you, what do you think? Don Torrez: Building this into your DNA that, if you, again, if you ma- put this in your initial creation, it's better. But good processes and controls can save you so much trouble later. And I know I've kind of hit on that before, but my background is in accounting and finance, which is, was boring. That's why I left it. But I learned the, the real importance of building processes and controls in place so that you had a lot less mistakes later on. You know, you really had correctness and quality built on early. And you should think of accessibility the same way. I mean, have people look at your website, have people look at your content and help you test it. Y- you really can rely on the human element to do this, and always think about your true n- north as being people. And really, a lot of local government leaders learn this later than they should, that accessibility done right the first time is accessibility done well. Michelle Alimoradi: I, I like that 'cause I also like that you pointed out the boring stuff is important, right? The stuff we don't like to do is often the most important. And when I think about, like accounting and finance, I also think about like documentation, right? And how, like what, what role do you think documentation could play in helping folks, you know, understand if their, if their process is really working? What do you think is a practical step that teams could take to strengthen how they work with vendors, especially around these complex requirements? Maybe they're just starting today. What's, what's one word of advice? Don Torrez: I would say you n- you need to know which vendors to work with, and I don't mean testing the people that you work with so much as where do I need help? And so I would say one really, it's not an easy way, but a preventable way that really helps you scope this around the complex requirements. Take a litch at-- look at your accessibility, develop an opinion about it. There are some free online tools that will help you assess the accessibility of your website. There's some easy steps you can take, like turning on a screen reader and seeing if it'll read your site. A lot of browsers have screen readers, and they're not necessarily testing tools, but it will give you an early acce- assessment of how it's doing. There are some pretty low-tech things you can do is take the batteries out of your mouse and navigate the site. Can you fill out a form? Can you watch a video and turn on the captions? Can you do the kinds of things that your government programs want you to do? And if you can't, you've got an accessibility problem. So if you scope it like that, then you'll know which help you need, and you'll know which partners and vendors to go look at. And I think that's important because if you start with letting someone do a complete scan of your website, it can be overwhelming in that a lot of them will tell you you have 50,000, 60,000 accessibility errors in your software, and that can be really frustrating. You know, you can think that you have too big of a problem to solve. But if you develop a bit of an opinion yourself, then you really know where you need to focus on getting the help. Michelle Alimoradi: I like that 'cause I, I feel like that's a good mix of, you know, empowering yourself, to start to figure out what your priorities are. Also just to put you in the shoes of the experience that you're trying to create, right? I, I think that's what I like the most about that approach. Don Torrez: On that note, I do have a follow-up too, is just ask people in your community. And one good thing to ask is, what do you wanna do that you can't do? You know, what programs or services do you wanna take advantage of that there are obstacles? And just asking the question of your residents and the people who use your business or website helps you a lot. I mean, that's more powerful testimony than any vendor could give you, and it really helps you decide where you need partnership. Michelle Alimoradi: I like that. Have you, have you walked through that process of sort of pulling the community with organizations that you've worked with? Don Torrez: Yes, and people really like to help. I mean, in terms of government, if you ask, you know, "Do you wanna review our website before we launch it and look at it?" Most people will say, you know, I wouldn't say most people will say yes, but if you ask for volunteers, you will find them. People love to be part of an initial creation. They love to be heard and give their feedback. And while it won't be necessarily comprehensive, it will be a good sample that will help you, you know, one decision point to really help you aim. Michelle Alimoradi: Yeah, and not to divert too much from our main topic here, but, you know, we've had a few of these conversations around accessible design on this podcast, and what I like about, you know, polling your residents is that sometimes there's stuff within accessibility that isn't fully addressed by the rule, right? Because as we said, like it's a, it's a human issue, so getting that human feedback as opposed to just looking at a whole list of criteria, which is also important, can give you a different perspective as like to how to prioritize and then of course which partners to, to seek out initially. Um- Don Torrez: You raise a really good point that I wanna pause for a second on, which is compliance and accessibility are not necessarily the same thing, and you said that really well, that you wanna comply with the rules and the laws, but what you're ultimately trying to do is make sure a human being can access your programs and services and do what you want them to. So compliance keeps us in between the lines when we try to do this, but accessibility is what we're after, and I think you said that really well. Michelle Alimoradi: Well, and I think, there's also a couple aspects to this too. Like there's, there's compliance, there's these DOJ issues, but then there's also private lawsuits as well. And that's where this human experience comes into play. I- in your experience, if people are, you know, under scrutiny for a compliance issue or just, you know, a public complaint, do you feel like it's more important to be catering action towards compliance or towards, you know, real human experience? Have you had any experience with that in any of the projects that you worked on? Don Torrez: Yeah, I mean, that's one thing I love to talk about. And I will say I'm not an attorney, so it's not legal advice. Michelle Alimoradi: We always like to say that. Don Torrez: Yeah, but you asked the right question, which is in my experience. In my experience, investigations generally are a lot softer if you have a bridge between you and a person with accessibility. So you want to have a strong accessibility policy. You want to have an easy way on your software or website for me to bring a complaint, you know, someone that I can talk to, a human being that I either email or chat or can call. And if you do that, then a lot of the-- That's the first thing that, in my experience, the Department of Justice or Office of, of Civil Rights looks for, is that bridge. And it's pretty easy to do compared to fixing everything on your website. And secondly, I don't know that it'll stop you from getting attorneys. We have a lot of attorneys who will file hundreds of complaint letters, you know, kind of across a huge-- across an industry or an area. But you can make yourself a harder target by having that access to the people and being able to document and show documentation of how you've tested and worked with your website. I'm not saying it makes you lawsuit-proof, but it makes you a lot harder of a target than others. So doing the right thing and making sure you can demonstrate that will really help. Michelle Alimoradi: And bringing that back to partnerships, would one want to also evaluate a partner based on whether they have documentation about their accessibility policies or, path for reporting an issue? Is that, is that something folks should look for, and are there any recommendations specifically around that? Don Torrez: Yes, this is something we really want to make a point on. Most partners that you work with, especially if they're vendors, will have the right indemnification clause that says they're not responsible. However, I would ask if I get a complaint, if I get an investigation, if someone files suit, what will you do? And the right vendors will, you know, not necessarily take on legal responsibility, but will come to your aid and show documentation of exactly what you've done. There are some who will, for example, make your documents accessible and they'll certify those and say, "Let us know if there's a problem." That's just one example, but if you ask the question of a vendor, "What happens if I get sued? What happens if, if I get an investigation?" They should say the right thing. That not necessarily that they'll take defense, but that they will be by your side through that. Michelle Alimoradi: And what, what do you think is a realistic thing for, government teams to expect in this context? I mean, you said obviously most places will have you sign some sort of indem- indemnification agreement. But what about things like, just making sure they have a VPAT, you know, where, where that's applicable or, or anything else? Don Torrez: I would definitely ask your vendor to have a VPAT. If you go to RFP or if you're looking to purchase anything, not just in accessibility, make sure that they're compliant to WCAG or compliant to some standard. Payment gateways, for example, if you're gonna have that on your website to pay bills or to buy something, make sure that that gateway is accessible as well. So you want all of your vendors to be accessible, and keep the documentation. The documentation helps so much. Like an accessibility partner should be able to help you make your, your work accessible, but then they should also document that and give you an attestation that they've done work for you that helps. And again, it won't prevent you from being sued or win the lawsuit for you, but it makes you a hard target to have those things in place. Michelle Alimoradi: Thank you so much, Don, for sharing all of this today, getting deep into these details with us. I think, this is an aspect of the conversation that we don't get as much of a deep dive into as often. I feel like we're hearing a lot of conversations about just, like, what, what are the rules, and what are the options. And it's very nice to take some time to get just a little bit deeper into the, into the next step, especially for people who might have already identified some things that they want to remediate right away, but now they're, like, evaluating options, right? They just are, like, worried about making the right decision. So, thank you so much for bringing your expe expertise, your experience to the podcast today. This conversation really highlights something that we don't talk about enough, which is that accessibility compliance isn't just about rules and tools. It could come down to relationships, ongoing relationships in order to make steady progress in your accessibility journey. So, when partnerships are working well, they can help teams avoid blind spots, clarify roles, and move forward without trying to do everything alone. But that takes clear expectations and handoffs, as we've discussed today. Thank you so much, Don, for joining us. Don Torrez, website accessibility consultant and certified accessibility coordinator for the University of Missouri and the Great Plains ADA Center. Really appreciate you coming on today. I hope we get a chance to collaborate again in the future. Don Torrez: Well, this is my passion. I love talking about this. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about it with you. Michelle Alimoradi: It's great. And I, and I hope that if our listeners, if this sparked any ideas for you, that you will check out our full episode library of other discussions on the upcoming ADA web rule enforcement and beyond. And we also encourage you to like, subscribe, share this episode with a colleague who would benefit from this conversation. I'm Michelle Alimoradi, and we will see you again next time on the "Government Video Podcast."