Ep 16, S3 - Making Digital Accessibility Stick: Big Lessons for Small Government Teams - Kris Adams

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. Dana: Welcome to the "Government Video Podcast." I'm your host, Dana Healy. Today we're talking with Kristopher Adams, the chief accessibility officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania within the Commonwealth Office of the Digital Experience. It's also known as Code PA. This is where he leads enterprise digital accessibility strategies across agencies as well as IT delivery centers. With more than 20 years of state government experience, Kristopher operates at the intersection of policy, technology, and organizational transformation. He's responsible for embedding accessibility into government's, procurement and software development cycle, as well as advancing its core digital infrastructure. This approach really emphasizes partnerships, data driven decisions, and practical implementation models that really enable delivery teams to integrate accessibility into everyday operations, which we love. Kristopher's career spans in customer service, lean leadership, program operations, human resources, as well as IT. It's not the typical background you would see from a chief accessibility officer. This experience really informs his leadership style and his commitment to building sustainable, scalable accessibility practices. We wanna get into that background and what it has actually taught him about making accessibility stick, and what does the last few months leading up to the ADA Title II deadline really looks like within a state government. And for the city clerks and station managers listening at home, who don't have a Code PA or a chief accessibility officer, what's the smallest working version of accessibility as an infrastructure, and how can you apply that? Kris, thanks for joining us today Kris: Thanks for having me, Dana. It's really a pleasure to be here. Dana: So I really wanna start with, uh, like your resume, because it's the first thing that jumped it, out at me. You've been at the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for almost 20 years, a variety of different departments throughout the whole time there. So I'm curious, how does someone with that path… I mean, you spanned from HR to, IT to, economic development. How does one end up at, chief accessibility officer? Kris: It's a wild path and, uh, you know, I, I enjoyed every minute of it. Learning how government works from the inside out by doing all those different jobs is, is extremely helpful. The common thread throughout my career has been improving how government works for people who depend on it. So I've worked with employees, customers, executives, technical teams, vendors, uh, and I've seen government services from several different perspectives, as we said there. accessibility sits at the intersection of all those areas. Accessibility isn't just one person's job. It's spread throughout the infrastructure. It involves people, technology, policy, procurement, operations, service delivery, governance. My path may not look traditional, but each role gave me the experience that is directly relevant to making accessibility work at an enterprise level. Dana: I mean, that's awesome 'cause it r- it really does. Accessibility, it's deep. It, spans very deeply into an organization, and that's one of the, kinda keystones that I've noticed is that you look at a- accessibility as an infrastructure, not a, a bolt-on. But before we get into that, I'd really love to learn a little bit more about CodePA. Can you explain to folks that may be new to that, uh, what is it and what is the mission? Kris: So CodePA is the Commonwealth Office of Digital Experience. It's the embodiment of Governor Shapiro's vision for digital services in Pennsylvania. Uh, we wanna have simple, seamless, secure, and be able to meet people where they are with digital content and services. So CodePA is tasked with just that, taking a look at the services that, the people of Pennsylvania use, how we can improve upon those services from a human-centered perspective, and drive that forward across the Commonwealth. Dana: So it's really interesting. So basically CodePA isn't a separate compliance office. It sits inside, the accessibility portion sits inside of the, digital experience. So what practically does that, kind of build upon? So that seems like a good spot to be so, that you're able to get more everybody on board with accessibility. Can you talk a little bit about that? Kris: Yeah. I look at CodePA bringing human-centered design and user research and a product mindset to how we design and build our digital services for Pennsylvania. So digital accessibility and user experience are closely linked because both aim to create products that work for as many people as possible, you know, excluding no one. While policy might establish expectations, the product determines what people actually experience. So being a part of CodePA allows accessibility to be connected to design, content, engineering, quality assurance, product management, and the broader digital strategy. We can engage when decisions are still being made rather than only reviewing the outcome and being bolted on at the end. You know, this allows us to build in a more, user-centered fashion and in a more accessible fashion. It doesn't eliminate the compliance function, but it connects compliance to the teams and processes that can make accessibility operational. It also keeps the conversation focused on whether people can successfully use a government service, not simply whether it appears in the policy. The whole point is can somebody use it? If they can't- Mm … we have a problem, whether it's accessibility or not. Dana: Also kind of talking about 'cause you, you mentioned it's not bolted on, and that is, uh, looking through your LinkedIn, you talk a lot about the, it's not a checklist, right? as accessibility is that, that infrastructure that seeps into all of our, our departments and the cus- the user experience. So what experience taught you that, and are, are you seeing any, 'Cause I'm seeing a lot of, a lot of other government agencies that are approaching things as a checklist. So I'd really like to, um, kinda bring to light the how and the why it should be seen as an infrastructure. Do you know, you know what I mean, Kris? Kris: No, I do. And I know a lot of the other states take a look at it from a checklist perspective. It's almost the older way of thinking, and we're trying to move this forward and into a new way of thinking. Moving from more of a policing to partnership model where we work together with our groups. The checklist model usually treats accessibility as something that happens near the end of a project. A team builds a product, they test it, they receive a list of issues. They fix what they can, and then it moves on. Now, that approach may address individual defects, but it doesn't prevent the same problems from appearing in the next release or the next product that we have. It's also expensive and difficult to sustain it that way. Accessibility becomes infrastructure when it's built into how organizations design, purchase, develop, test, publish, and maintain our digital services. The goal is not simply to find more problems. It's to create systems that produce fewer barriers. For example, we've been moving from a model where issues are discovered at the end to one where accessibility is built into the quality assurance, our product decision-making, governance, and the guidance employees use to create content in the first place. So teaching people to do this is a culture change, but it's a really important one because when we're all working together to make things more accessible in human-centered design, that's when it becomes institutionalized, not centralized. Dana: What are some, tactical ways that you've incorporated this into your culture? Like, do you have, like, an onboarding program or things that make, make it easier for new employees to the state to really understand their role in this? Kris: We have a lot of trainings out there in our learning management system, that employees can use to begin their journey down accessibility path so that they can learn from the beginning and through, because there's a lot of people that don't know or understand it yet. We've also created a internal SharePoint that houses a lot of documentation that's easy to access. We don't put up a wall of, of text that gets scary, and people look and they see WCAG 2.1 and a bunch of things they don't understand and acronyms. We make it easy to access, not to, you know, use that term. But we have a lot of guides, on there, and they're easily, you know, easily, uh, accessed by the people that need them. But on top of that, we host communities of practice. We have a community of practice for our IT delivery centers, and that's a more technical one where we talk about, coding, accessibility in coding, our area labels, how we create from a developer and engineering perspective accessible products. We also have a community of practice for our digital content creators. That's our public web presence, our graphic designers, people that create PDFs or other digital content to try and teach people how to do that from the ground up. That way we're creating digital content that's accessible instead of going back and trying to fix things over and over again. That creates a loop and a cycle of just continuing to fix things that are created that are inaccessible. So in doing that, we're able to kind of spread the word. We've also created governance. So we have, uh, multiple IT delivery centers, and we have pinpointed areas in each one that focuses on the QA end of things, and accessibility, also on the product development side of it. And we bring those folks together, uh, with my team to talk about the way we're scaling across the board, and we get input from them on where they're having problems, and then we try and solve those problems together and continue to scale, spread the word, and move things forward Dana: That feels very collaborative. Like you're getting so many people involved and like you said, it's built on, partnerships as well. Hey, GVP listeners. Before we get back into today's episode, Tightrope Media Systems, the sponsor of Government Video Podcast, has a special offer to help you in your video accessibility journey. Tightrope is the maker of MediaScribe, a platform that makes your government video accessible with automated captioning and audio descriptions. And today, they are offering a 30-day extended evaluation period of MediaScribe Narrate, their solution for automated audio descriptions, just for our listeners. So by going to app.mediascribe.ai, you can sign up for this offer with code GVP30. Now, this offer includes training and support, and is designed to help you start planning your compliance workflows today. There's no obligation to buy, and this is Tightrope's commitment to helping teams start figuring out their accessible media workflows right now, instead of waiting until the last minute due to budget or procurement limitations, or whatever else might be holding you back from getting prepared. MediaScribe Narrate generates audio descriptions for your pre-recorded, on-demand public meeting content, and it's built around how councils and boards actually run. So it prioritizes the most important context like agenda slides, name graphics, and speaker transitions, and that grounding is what helps keep your review steps short, so the accessibility work fits inside a small team's existing schedule rather than adding to it. And solidifying that workflow now instead of waiting until right before the ADA Title II deadlines means less to manage later. Tightrope also runs MediaScribe Academy, which is a free resource to anyone working on their content remediation at no cost and regardless of which tools you use to get there. And Tightrope also offers regular educational sessions for MediaScribe users at no added cost. So to redeem this offer, sign up again at app.mediascribe.ai with code GVP, like Government Video Podcast, 30 and start building your workflow today. Now back to the episode Dana: So I'd like to pivot to Title II, 'cause a, a lot of the, the folks that are, are watching or listening to this podcast are on their journey to ensure that their websites and videos are all, compliant under the ADA Title II WCAG standard that you mentioned. What do you see as the gap between, uh, what the rule is requiring and what it really takes operationally? y- like speaking from, uh, your perspective, uh, within the state of Pennsylvania. And where do agencies are, they're underestimating kind of the work that needs to go into that? And keeping in mind a lot of the folks that are listening or watching, they may not have a chief accessibility officer or a code PA. Um, a lot of these folks may just have one person in a communications department or even just a city clerk. What are your thoughts on that, Kris? Kris: For, us, with the DOJ final rule, we looked at that as, as a reminder that Title II existed. Title II has been in ex- existence for quite some time now, and it's, it's what we should have been doing all along. The DOJ rule from where I sit was a reminder that, hey, this exists. Let's start moving in the right direction. So that means, you know, taking an inventory of your products, your digital products, taking a look at the most trafficked digital products, whether they're applications or websites or PDFs, and then starting from there. Those are the highest risk items, the items that most people are using to try and access what they need. so we look at it from that standpoint. Pennsylvania was ready to go, for the original DOJ deadline. We may… We were ahead of schedule and expectations. We were on track to complete baseline testing for high impact applications by March before they announced the deadline was being moved from April 2026 to April 2027. It's not something we started six months beforehand, but you know, we put that governance in place and worked towards it. And as you said, you know, there's folks that might not have that, uh, a CAO or someone to be able to push things through there. So for folks like that, I would not begin by trying to audit and repair everything at once. And that's- Dana: Sure … Kris: some people take a look at it, they see the whole ball of wax and they try and eat it all at once. You can't eat the whole elephant at once. You have to prioritize your highest traffic items, maybe designate someone to coordinate the work, even if it's not a CAO, even if accessibility is only part of that person's role. Next, you would identify the digital services that residents use most often, paying bills, applying for permits, finding emergency information, attending public meetings, or contacting the borough or whatever entity you might be. Start with those high value services first. Establish accessible templates, basic publishing checks, a clear way for residents to report barriers, and accessibility expectations for your vendors as well. A small organization does not need a large accessibility office, but it does need ownership and repeatable processes. Dana: I really like that. I just wanna highlight it for our listeners at home. Giving a way for, folks to report back, so you have that back and forth communication. 'cause then you've got all these eyes looking at it, and we all want to make our, our content more accessible so everybody wins. Yeah, that's great, Kris. Excellent. So I'd love to get a little more specific about video, 'cause that's what a, a lot of our listeners are producing. So they're producing council meetings, PSAs, live streams. So I'm curious where video sits in Pennsylvania's accessibility priorities. What do you see teams that use a lot of video or post a lot of video, what is overlooked? What do you think? Kris: I think video is an important part of digital service delivery, especially when it communicates public meetings, emergency information, program instructions, or other information that residents need to take action on. The most common problem is treating accessibility as a post-production task. Teams may rely on unreviewed automati- automatic captions. It might omit speaker identification and meaningful sounds, or discover after an event begins that the streaming platform does not support the accessibility features that they need. Video accessibility needs to be considered during the planning, the platform, the script, visuals, audio, the captioning process, live event support, and how the recording will be published afterwards. So the main thing here is, you know, you wanna make sure that your captions aren't just auto-generated. There should be transcription available for after the video so that people can review that or have it alongside the video. And just planning for those events ahead of time so that you're not just taking it afterwards and figuring out how to make it accessible after the fact. If you plan ahead for video, you'll make it a more accessible experience, and it'll be a lot easier, it'll be a lot easier to get it done and get it done right. While captions are essential, they're also only one part of the experience. Teams should also consider whether important information is communicated only visually, whether the video player is accessible, whether a transcript would make the information easier to use, how people with disabilities can participate in a live meeting, uh, that might have video alongside it. When resources are limited, I would prioritize based on the importance and urgency of the information. Begin with accurate captions and accessible delivery platform, then address transcripts, meaningful visual information, and live participation needs based on the content, audience, and potential consequences of someone being unable to access it. Dana: So it sounds a lot like planning, some good planning. Some, priorities, like understanding all of the information. So I'm curious on, like emergency, uh, notifications as well. Do you ever run into a, a time where we want to, um, you know, communicate quickly, and how do you prioritize accessibility around that? Do you guys use, you know, ASL translators or anything like that? What's typically your, go-to related to emergency communications? Kris: We haven't had a lot since I've been in this seat of emergency communications, but from what I've seen in the past and what I think works, if it's emergency communications that everybody needs to see, I think it's important to have an ASL interpreter on site with the speaker so that, they're able, and vis- you know, being able to see them clearly, and the speaker being able to speak, at a, a pace that they're able to keep up with, uh, when it comes to the ASL. And then also, you know, considering you might need more than one if it's gonna be a long conference because it, it can be straining to do that for a long period of time. Making sure that, you know, you know that your captions are going to be correct, having your speaking notes ahead of time. It might not always be readily available because of the nature of the emergency, but making sure then that the transcript is available immediately after the, the video is, is put up so that people can go back and take a look at exactly what was said if they might have missed the video portion or the ASL interpreter, um, or the captioning wasn't working properly. But those are the main things I look at, when it comes to accessible videos during emergency situations. And I think the ASL inter- interpreter during those situations is super important. Dana: Yes, I, I agree. And I like your take on the transcripts because I think that's, something that gets, can be overlooked, but it is so helpful, especially when people are using assistive devices to be able to, go through the, content and understand. So that's, that's fabulous. So like I mentioned before, we have a lot of, listeners and viewers that are, are very small organizations. So what would be your recommendation, Kris, if like a, a city clerk or a one-shop, comms person, we, they wanna make sure that they have, ADA Title II, in check coming in April. What's the one thing that they could start today that you think that they could, get towards that deadline? Kris: Similar to what I said before, I think the smallest version would be one accountable person, one basic standard, one way to report a problem, and a few repeatable checks before content is published. That could mean using accessible document and video templates, reviewing the captions before they go out, checking links and headings, including accessibility requirements in vendor conversations, and regularly reviewing the organization's highest use services. Also, allowing that path for people to communicate when they cannot access services so that you can take immediate action. Infrastructure does not have to mean a large team or an expensive platform. It means accessibility does not depend entirely on someone remembering to think about it at the last minute, if that makes sense. At the Commonwealth level, we have our governance, our shared guidance, our testing capability, and people across agencies to help carry this work. A municipality can apply those same principles at a much smaller scale. The scale is different, but the fundamentals are pretty much the same. Dana: That's fabulous, Kris. I love that the scale is different but the fundamentals are the same. I mean, you're right on. Kris, thanks so much for taking the time today. And for the listeners and viewers at home, if you found this helpful, please share it with a colleague. Like and subscribe for more government content about accessibility, and thanks so much for joining us.