Ep. 13, S2 - Policy to Action: A Digital Accessibility Roadmap

Host Dana Healy talks with Marie Cohan, Statewide Digital Accessibility Officer, about reframing accessibility as a driver of efficiency and leadership engagement. Marie shares her three-phase roadmap—from policy to action—to help government teams turn accessibility goals into measurable progress ahead of the 2026 WCAG deadline.

MediaScribe offers Real Time In-Room Captions & Translations for Government Meetings. Learn more at mediascribe.ai.

Transcript

Marie: [00:00:00] When you start talking about the efficiency, the economic benefit, leadership tends to get a lot more engaged, because that's really what we're all focused on as leaders is how do we do more with the same or with less? And so that, that seems to get the accessibility conversation a little bit more embedded than just talking about compliance.

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. 

Dana: Welcome to the Government Video Podcast, your essential resource for insights on government communications and video technology. I'm your host Dana Healy, and today we're exploring what it takes to drive digital accessibility at the state and global level, from policy to implementation and everything in between.[00:01:00] 

I'm joined by Marie Cohan, the statewide digital accessibility officer with over 25 years experience in IT project management, policy, analysis, and accessibility. Marie works closely with leaders across government, higher education, and industry to really remove barriers and create inclusive digital experiences.

She also is currently serving a three-year term for the Global Leadership Council for the International Association of Accessibility Professionals, where she helps define, promote, and advance accessibility with the profession worldwide. Marie, thanks so much for joining us today.

Marie: Thank you for having me. This is a pleasure.

Dana: So to, to really kick it off, you've had over 25 years experience in it policy. Where was that turning point that led you into accessibility where you are now?

Marie: You know, I've been involved in [00:02:00] accessibility on the education side for, over 20 years. So all of my children qualify as neurodivergent. It's a, it's a different, some of them have more than one neurodivergent type and I had to advocate for them from kindergarten all the way through, till they graduated from high school, even a little bit when they went into college, helping them transition to disability resources at the university level.

So that's how I got started, and that was mainly with section 504 into the Rehabilitation Act. And then, working as an IT project manager started learning more about digital accessibility, which is you know, under the ADA, it's under, it's also under section 504, it's under section 508.

And, and I really liked it and this opportunity came available and I decided to try my hand at leading the statewide program, and it's been just so much fun.

Dana: That's, that's incredible to, especially to tackle it from the state level. So you're on the IAAP. Can you tell us [00:03:00] a little bit about your role with that and what is kind of entails with that organization? Because it's, it's quite interesting.

Marie: Yeah, so it's a professional organization for all things accessibility. So it's not just digital accessibility. They also work on the built environment which goes over architectural requirements. The organization I guess governing body is G3ict, and, and so we meet quarterly you know, there's, there's regular members who actually work for the organization.

And then there's the Global Leadership Council. And we, you know, we talk about a number of things. We talk about ways that we can bring in more membership. We talk about what we can do to help our members, to educate them, potentially new certifications for them. You know, how can we advocate for accessibility globally, you know, different offices in different countries.

So they've got, IAAP offices [00:04:00] set up all over the globe in different countries and they're constantly trying to expand that. And then, you know, just whatever issues are coming up in current day that maybe we need to address, especially if it's something that's gonna impact the field and we wanna, you know, look out for our membership.

Dana: And a lot of the resources available on your website are incredible. Like, I, I like going through some of the webinars and it's been really impactful content. The most of our viewers and listeners are government folks, people that are kinda in communications and video, and there's this, there's this deadline coming up Marie. So, in April, 2026, we have the WCAG deadline, and a lot of our listeners are starting or in the middle or finishing. Well, you can never really finish the accessibility journey. So they're right in the middle of that. For those that are just starting their [00:05:00] accessibility journey to be, you know, I don't wanna say just compliant, but really to have accessibility in their whole culture of their government. Where should they start? I mean, it's coming in April. What do, what do we do?

Marie: Yeah, so that's a great question and I'm gonna break it down by level of government. So starting at the national level, we do have states that do not have a statewide policy. A lot of them are either following just federal law, and they have no, no statewide policy, no statewide laws or, or any kind of code.

Whereas other states, they do have all of that. So, so they have their own policies internally that may be higher than the federal level. They may be on par with the federal level. So those states that don't have any kind of internal policy in place, that would be the first place I'd start. Even if you're gonna just follow the federal guidelines, make sure that's known, make sure [00:06:00] that information is clear and disseminated down through all of your agencies or higher ed or who, whoever falls under that executive branch of government.

As far as state and local, like getting down into the agency level, getting down to the university level, cities, counties, et cetera. Again,, what is that policy? We all wanna be following the same guidelines. So if you can find out like do you have a policy to follow at the statewide level? Do you have a city ordinance or, you know, some kind of county rules that you, that you need to follow with regard to digital accessibility.

It's really important to have those policies in place and to make sure that they are known to your government employees, so that they can all be carrying out, you know, their digital accessibility, compliance in the same way. I am running into issues where there is no clear policy and so it's causing a real stumbling block for folks.[00:07:00] 

Once they have that policy in place, then they can, you know, start moving through, you know, an inventory of their IT, what needs to, you know, what falls within scope of the, of the April deadline, like you said. So the April deadline is not a global deadline for all technology. It is for web and mobile applications, and it's just for government bodies that are over 50,000 or 50,000 and up. There's a later deadline in 2027 for the smaller public sector groups. But you know, a lot of government has decided to just adopt the new standard across the board. So, my guidance to the vendor community that supports government is be prepared to, you know, represent at, at the base level or a higher level, because government is starting to adopt those higher levels across the board, not just for website accessibility.

Dana: Yeah, I think the, the policy level piece is so important. Let's all sing from the same sheet of music, [00:08:00] right? So in Texas, you've built out a roadmap of accessibility there, and it had a lot of, it had key phrase, phases, and stage gates. Can you tell our audience a little bit about the work that you did around that and what those key phases were?

Marie: So the roadmap I built is not just for general accessibility or building an accessibility program. It was very specific to Title II. We all knew it was coming, you know, folks were getting prepared. And then it came and we talked about it a lot. And now in 2025, a year later, everyone is starting to kind of scramble and, execute their plans to be compliant with Title II.

So when the new rule was published, I of course read it like most of my counterparts and started to try to look for where this is gonna cause the pain points within government, how it's gonna impact, who, [00:09:00] who needs to be involved, who are the stakeholders? What is a plan of action, again, project manager.

So that's kind of how I initially looked at it. So let's build out a plan to make this happen. Make this a reality. And so yes, my roadmap does have three big phases to it. The initial phase is getting to know the law and, and getting those stakeholders involved. So talking to your general counsel.

If you have a risk officer talking to the risk officer, definitely talk to leadership, because they're the ones that can help spread that message and provide those resources that are needed to be successful. Talk to your IT team, your project, your procurement teams. So once everybody's on board and they understand what's required in the new law, then we move to the next stage of execution, which is, you know, let's look at our technology.

What is in scope for Title II? What can we remove that is maybe in the exceptions that were provided by the Department of Justice. So let's take those off the table, right off the [00:10:00] bat, that whittles down what we need to prioritize. Whatever is left on the table, again, prioritize, you know, what has the highest risk, what has the most contact for our residents?

What is gonna have the most impact if it's not accessible for our residents? And let's go ahead and, and get those up to date. So that's where a lot of people are right now. A lot of the public sector entities are, they're going through, they're doing an, an assessment of, you know, their contracts for procurement.

All of their documents that are on their websites, their web pages, their content. Any videos, training videos, you know,, outreach videos, those all need to be closed captioned. So they're going through right now and trying to make sure all of that is gonna, is gonna be compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA. And then at the very end, what's gonna happen when we get to April of 2026? That's everyone's big question. Private lawsuits are very real and it is kind of a perfect storm.

We all have this new regulation, we're all having to comply with it. It's a lot of changes that are happening to be in compliance with it. So there is gonna probably be a little bit of a spike in complaints and legal actions just because it, it just lends itself to that. It's creating that perfect environment.

Dana: Mm-hmm. So, your phase one, the getting to know the law. I think is what you called phase one. You mentioned reaching out to, to stakeholders and trying to get that, that buy-in. So this is a theme that I hear a lot with our, our listeners and viewers, is how do they one, identify those particular stakeholders that need to be involved in that conversation, and how do they secure that leadership buy-in?

Do you have any tips or [00:12:00] strategies that people could take away with?

Marie: Yea, absolutely. So it always goes back to policy like I mentioned before, so you know, who, if you have a policy in place, that would be the place to start,, because leadership has already reviewed that on some level. Finding out who your stakeholders are, again, who is gonna have the biggest impact in moving this, this compliance journey forward?

Providing those resources. So again, general counsel, 'cause they'll be the ones that'll help interpret the law. You wanna make sure your leadership is involved. They're the ones that are gonna provide budget or provide additional resources, approve any kind of third party contracts that you need to do.

Talking to procurement is a big one. That's to me the number one line of defense when it comes to making sure you have accessible technology is to buy it in the first place. And so you don't have to go out and re-procure or fix anything afterwards. So just getting that team together, you know, you meant, you ask about how do you get leadership buy-in.[00:13:00] 

You know, it's government. We always have compliance. It's a constant in government. And, and it's not the, the funnest conversation, right? We all, none of us wants to really talk about compliance. It's always there. So, what I try to do with leadership is talk about government efficiency when it comes to accessibility.

So when we design our websites, when we buy accessible technology, when we hire developers who have that training, we're getting it right from the very beginning. So that means we don't have to go out and re-procure something, which can be very costly. We don't have to bring in a third party to do additional testing because now we've done the testing throughout the development lifecycle.

You know, we don't have to go in back and do remediation because we missed something that, 'cause we didn't test it along the way. These are all very costly. If you have something that's not accessible and you're not responsive and you don't have a corrective action plan already in place to handle those types of [00:14:00] complaints, now you're gonna start getting into legal actions. That's very costly.

Public information requests, any kind of discovery that's requested of the public sector entity, any kind of litigation that if it moves to that level, so now you're talking about massive cost, not just monetary costs, but also lost time with employees, the more your employees have to move away from their daily job to focus on this legal action or rework or reprocurement or whatever.

You're losing productivity time, which is a cost. So I try to talk to leaders about that. You know, it's an opportunity to be more efficient with government resources if we consider accessibility from the very beginning. It also is a good economic driver. So if you think about, you know, a lot of people that have disabilities have their own companies.

So, you know, what does that mean for the state? It means they're gonna start their own business. They're gonna be paying taxes to the government. They're gonna be paying unemployment to the government. [00:15:00] They're gonna be generating an economic benefit within the community. So that is all good for government as well to, and, and the way we do that is we make sure that our government forms our websites to start that business, to pay those taxes, are all accessible, making it much easier for them. Universities that have great disability resource centers provide accessible learning materials, will have an increased enrollment, so that's more tuition for the university, more room and board, more university fees. 

When you start talking about the efficiency, the economic benefit, leadership tends to get a lot more engaged, because that's really what we're all focused on as leaders is how do we do more with the same or with less? And so that, that seems to get the accessibility conversation a little bit more embedded than just talking about compliance.

Dana: I love that take with the government efficiency piece of it. 'cause I've also seen, people come at it with, well compliance just 'cause we have to, [00:16:00] risk management. We don't wanna get sued. All of those pieces of it. But I think that is the most pragmatic way. And I heard recently, moving accessibility to the left of a project, right?

So think about it from the forefront and what can we do in the now to implement it as it, it kind of progresses through the project. So yeah. So that, that's a really, that's a really great take and hopefully people will be able to enter those conversations with that framing and you know, be flexible, be able to tact with, okay, well let's talk about compliance.

Let's also talk about equity, as well as risk management and efficiencies, number one there.

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Dana: So a couple other questions for you. As, as these cities, counties, states, are implementing all of these, what are [00:18:00] ways that they can really measure progress? Because I misspoke at the beginning when I was said, oh, when accessibility is finished, but it's never finished. Like we have this constant, you know, growth pattern and what are ways that we can continuously measure our progress as we go through this, this process for many organizations, it's gonna be the first time kind of going at it. But then we wanna maintain it. So what do you think Marie?

Marie: I really hope we continue the momentum after that April deadline. This is not gonna be a one and done, so this should definitely be embedded in all CIO initiatives going forward. I have my little public service announcement that all technologies should incorporate privacy, security, and accessibility.

That's critical for the end user. So, you know, going forward just, just making it part of the culture, how do you measure it? So have your complaints gone down? When we have really accessible [00:19:00] website, it, it optimizes our search engine results. So are you getting better performance on the website or you know, are you having less issues with people finding what they need on your website?

You can tell that by people clicking around you can measure those different things. Has your cost gone down on the procurement side? So if you're procuring accessible technology products and services right up front, now you're not having to go back and reprocure. So, you know, are you measuring any kind of reprocurements that you're doing on specific types of technology?

Any kind of exceptions that you're doing, the more you can reduce that exception filing for buying something that has a known gap. As those exceptions start to go down, that's another way to measure. 'Cause that shows that you're purchasing better technology. You don't have to do those exceptions within your agency.

So there are different ways to measure. It, it really just depends on the agency.

Dana: I love that, those exception gaps, that's a really tangible, measurable [00:20:00] thing that will reduce a lot of friction for organizations. So that, that's a really good metric for that one. So let's talk about the, your rallying cry around, privacy and security, right? So you framed accessibility as like a technology, right? With privacy and security. What do you think that we need to do to make that whole package a cultural norm?

Marie: It's going to have to just be an expectation. So, government is a huge driver. We're constantly procuring. We have very strong, public private partnerships. We can't do everything ourselves. We can't build all the systems ourselves. We can't do all the development ourselves.

So we do partner with the, the private sector to help us, you know, to do all of that. And so setting that expectation at the vendor level, that government is, these are our compliance requirements. We need you to bring us accessible products, accessible, develop, you know, tech services, are your developers trained?

How well [00:21:00] are they trained? How often do you re-up the training, you know, to keep them current. So setting those expectations upfront, the power of the dollars. So if you've got a couple of different products to choose from, or you're working with a few different vendors, but one is way more accessible than the other, that should come out on top.

Buying those more accessible products. Other competitors will start to see that and they'll start making their products more, more competitive, more accessible. You know, then it's also gonna come down to residents. So our, the public who is using these government sites, they can be very vocal.

You know, In Texas we just had some really good legislation go through our session, because small businesses in Texas wanted more efficient websites. They wanted the websites to be more user friendly, easier to navigate, you know, less documentation and things like that on the websites. Even at the federal level, we're doing the same thing, making sure websites [00:22:00] are a lot more efficient.

So all of that is going to trickle down to the public, it's gonna trickle to private sector, and create that shift where we all need to be talking about this. We all need to focus on this.

Dana: Any, any website that has less friction and just is a better user experience, it, it's a win-win for everybody.

Marie: Well, that's the other thing I was gonna mention, because we're also in my agency, very big on customer experience. So you know, people that live in your state or your city, they have to come to you. That's not like there's a choice between public sector entities to do business with. But that doesn't mean it has to be a difficult experience for them.

So even though they still have to come to us and, and they have no other choices, we can make that experience much more easy for them, a much better experience. I believe that that is actually a community builder for your state, your county, your city. The better the information is that we provide on [00:23:00] our public sector websites, it's a community builder 'cause people can go out and use that information to support their communities, you know, to, whether it's emergency management or transportation or housing needs. You know, all of this ties back to accessibility and making sure that our, our residents can get the services they need when they're interacting with government.

Dana: Yeah, that's a really important distinction, is like, yeah, they have to go to you, but you can also make it a really easy experience for them. So Marie, I'd like to talk a little bit about IAAP and kind of trends and what you're seeing. So what trends are you seeing emerge globally or local US governments should, should start to pay attention to?

Marie: The biggest trending right now is just the change in laws. So the European Accessibility Act went into effect in June of this year. It's gonna be a game changer in Europe, and [00:24:00] it's, it's got some pretty stringent requirements in it. The US now has Title II that was released last year for web accessibility.

There is some legislation that's still moving through the federal government on additional web accessibility resolutions. You know, the state of Texas just passed a new, a new bill for web accessibility. The state of Colorado just passed their new accessibility law, which has a way higher standard.

I they're the leader in the nation right now as far as accessibility standards go. Maryland last year just signed some new resolutions for the state. So I think right now what we're seeing globally is a lot of legislative or regulatory changes to improve accessibility in the community.

So, yeah, that's what I'm seeing right now. And then just trying to get that messaging out, to as many public sector bodies as possible. And private sector. IAAP is not just [00:25:00] public sector, it's private sector, it's everything.

Dana: Oh, ok, gotcha.

So does, does Europe typically like set the standard first or does the US or does it kind of vary globally?

Marie: I think it varies. You know, I'm still new enough in this field from a, from the regulatory standpoint. I, I don't have enough knowledge and experience under my belt to tell you who's moving faster than who. We're all trying to move together. Canada is also passing some new requirements and policies.

So we're all working together. We're all collaborating, which is critical. And trying to understand what each country is doing so that we can maybe do the same thing, try to make it as universal as possible.

Dana: What about your crystal ball? Do you see where we're going in five years? Like is there going to be another standard that we'll have to be,able to meet down the down the road?

Marie: I mean, ideally if, if I could pick, I would say Title III under the ADA [00:26:00] needs to be updated. I don't see that happening in the next five years. What I do see happening in the next five years is a lot more AI disruption when it comes to accessibility, both positive and negative. So I see a lot of good that AI is doing in this area.

There's a lot of smart assistive technology to help people with disabilities. They're now embedding AI for accessibility testing to improve the automated scanning results. 'Cause right now before AI, you know, automated scanning only catches about a third of the issues. You really have to get it, get your hands dirty and do manual testing to get everything else.

AI is gonna definitely improve those numbers. It's helping with code development.. But we also need to make sure our AI models take into consideration people with disabilities. So we don't want any unconscious bias built into the AI. We don't wanna leave anyone out. That's the very definition of digital accessibility [00:27:00] is, you know, having those barriers in place that prevent people from interacting with technology.

So we wanna make sure that AI doesn't become a disruptor in that way.

Dana: Yeah, that's a really important distinction because the models are all training off of, of data. So what kind of data are we feeding them? So I, I'd like to get your thoughts on kind of human in the loop around AI and accessibility. What are your thoughts about that? Because we have AI now, a lot of people get automatic captioning and they think like, oh, well, just, that's it. We'll just let that go. What's your thought about human in the loop to kind of refine those types of technologies?

Marie: I think it's critical. I have yet to see really anything, at least on a generative AI level where the human in the loop is no longer needed. It's definitely still required you know. We've gotten really good with AI doing captioning and transcripts, but there's still mistakes. You still want a human there [00:28:00] to, to proofread or to watch along the way and correct mistakes as they pop up.

So yeah, it's critical that people are still working alongside artificial intelligence.

Dana: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's super important. So for our leaders that are listening today, what's one takeaway that you'd like them to leave with about as they think about accessibility and their journey with it?

Marie: So my one takeaway is be proactive. Please be proactive in all things digital accessibility, you know, embedded into your procurement process. So you're buying those accessible products and services. Make a policy for your, your public sector entity and make sure you disseminate that. Be proactive with training.

Start training your employees ahead of time. Keep the training refreshed. Make sure you're checking your site, monitoring it for any kind of accessibility issues. The best thing we can do is always have that proactive mindset, you know, from the beginning, making sure [00:29:00] accessibility is on the table as a discussion point early on, because I promise you, when, when we deal with it on a reactive basis, whether there's a legal action or something fails, or we have like a, a significant compliance issue, it's gonna be way more costly, way more time consuming, and much more of a disruptor in normal business process than just doing it upfront.

Dana: Yeah, I think that's, that's super valuable takeaway for folks is, we need to reframe on how do we add it earlier in the process. Marie, thank you so much for coming on and telling us all about you know, the IAAP as well as your role in Texas and the work that you've done there to forward accessibility.

We truly appreciate your time.

Marie: Oh, thank you. This was a pleasure. It was so nice to talk with you, Dana.

Dana: Awesome. Awesome. And for our listeners and viewers at home, please like, subscribe and share with your colleagues if you found this beneficial, and we will see you next time.