Travis County Commissioners Court
July 17, 2007
Item 29
Number 29. 10 we will call up next. 29 is to receive presentation from tax assessor collector regarding computer world honor program award.
>> nelda spears. We are here this morning with fred west, director of (indiscernible). And bill hemer, ceo of hemer enterprises. And aubry blackburn may want to have comments when we're done with this part. Ms. West came today from boston, massachusetts. And mr. Hemer from mccal less than, Texas. -- mcallen, Texas.
>> thank both of you. The red carpet was rolled out for both of you. You may not have noticed.
>> we noticed.
>> in the summer of 24, the tax office staff and I were designing our new web state. We want this had to be accessible for the citizens of Travis County, and one feature that we were looking for was to be able to fill out forms and then print them, fill them out online and then print the completed forms. At the time the common method was to download a form, then write or type in the requested data so we're looking for a little different solution. Heimer enterprises proposed using adobe to not only fill it out online, but also give the user help text about each feature or each field that they were entering. Voter application, deputy registrar applications in both english and spanish and several property tax forms, including the residential homestead exemption was prepared for use in the new website. The site actually came up in September just before the presidential elections that year. The use of the online voter registration form was a success, but then we received a call from an individual as a Texas school for the blind and visually impaired. Our new form were not working with certain versions of readers for the blind community, and that's forms would be most beneficial for them. We contacted heimer enterprises and they determined that they had indeed programmed the forms correctly, but still they didn't appear to work correctly. Heimer imiez introoizs staff then got with adobe staff in dc and together they found solutions in the latest version of adobe and submitted the solutions to become a part of their next release to correct the problem. The new release was tested and the forms were a success. This going the extra mile caught the eye of i.b.m. And they contacted heimer to work on a solution. At this time I would like to ask frances to give you an overview of what their program are all about.
>> thank you. My name is frances west and I'm the director of i.b.m. Worldwide human ability and accessibility center. As nelda said, about two years ago we got a call from haimer and associates about the solution that the tech office had come up with to help the citizens in Travis County. And we were very interested in getting involved because we as the largest information technology company in the world, we're begin to go notice that the technology, while on one hand can really help government and private city industry, but if you don't take accessibility into consideration, you can be excluding a segment of the population from accessing or even leveraging the technology. So haimer associates and also the Travis County offered us an opportunity to work together and create what we called the e-government application. That's truly inclusive and accessible for all citizens. In this case we worked together along with the dusty knight, the ceo of your county, to really map out a solution strategy that later on was implemented online as a first example of how a local or municipal government really takes all citizens requirement and needs into consideration and to begin to leverage the technology to provide innovation that truly matters to the citizens in this county. And we were delighted to be part of this solution and we have been working -- continually working with Travis County to go beyond what american disability act kale for, the meeting the compliance level. What we want to really strive for is what we kale the usable access in the sense that you could have technology online to give the minimum access to people with disabilities or aging population who have some cognitive challenge. It's one thing to meet the minimum compliance, to meet the letter of the law. Another is to truly design the solution to be effective and usable by all. So again, this is the first example of that, and I think now that we're sharing with you how this particular dmampl Travis County actually rez nate with all governments around the world.
>> I'm bill haimer, ceo of haimer enterprises and we were the creator and designer of the website. I would like to thank you for having me here today and especially to thank this county for being willing to take on this challenge of looking at what we really need to do for people who are disabled and the visually impaired. It was a tremendous success as you're starting to hear right now. As we rolled out this site to begin with, we quickly realized that there was an additional need. And as soon as we understood what the need was, we contacted ibm, worked very closely with ibm. Ibm staff actually here in Austin, Texas and our group out of mcallen Texas worked several conferences and thing here in Austin to create this website to make it accessible. Tremendous people were involved in the tax office. We had great cooperation with everybody. And ffs just so inspiring to see -- and it was so inspire to go see people who wanted to pave the way. They didn't want to go down the traditional paths. They wanted to go out and blaze new trails and be at the he at the forefront of technology and what it can do for all individuals. So I wanted to thank this commission, this court, the tax office and all the people involved, and there were a lot of people. It wasn't just our company, it wasn't just i.b.m., but nelda in her office was really strunlt al in making this a true success for everyone. So we thank you for that. And what you're about to hear that occurred out of all this really takes this to the next level. And we appreciate that very much.
>> as you may recall, in August of last year, we had a press conference to unveil the website and the accessibility solution. As word got out about this solution that we were using or attempting at that time to use, we were asked to put together a case study for the computer world honors program. This program is designed to honor those who use information technology to benefit society. The case study was submitted and Travis County was selected to receive a laureate award. The award.
>> beautiful.
>> everybody can see that. There you go. Hold it up. That is something. That's great.
>> [ applause ]
>> we were selected -- I was trying to say selected. Selected to receive the laureate award in the government category. And there's a medal. Frances, bill and I went to washington, d.c. To accept the award and this is the medal, a search for new heroes, that accompanies the award. We want to hang it in the tax office, not in the commission urz office.
>> [ laughter ] or the judge's office. Not in the judge's office.
>> now, we will go right along with you on that.
>> [ laughter ]
>> at any rate, it was a very proud moment to receive the award and the laureate medal. The ceremony was very moving and we were -- we realized really for the first time that we were actually competing with people from all over the world. The lady that sat next to me during the ceremony was from holland. And there were several tiers of awards, this one being the first tier. And I want to thank the Commissioners court for your support during the work on this project and the building of the website. I want to thank bill haimer and haimer enterprises for the work they've done, their partnership with us, and i.b.m. For their assistance and for their nominating us to receive -- to compete for the award. Mr. Blackburn, if you would like to make comments regarding your experience with the accessibility website, I'll turn your mic around.
>> thank you. I was wondering how we would solve that microphone mystery.
>> [ laughter ] this is an excellent example of how to do it right. I've been working with the Travis County staff. I called as an individual who was concerned about the preensd how accessible it would be. When I started getting calls from people in the community who were saying I want to be able to vote. I want to register, but I'm having difficulty doing that. I can't complete the process because the forms were on the site, but you couldn't actually do in and fill in the fields on the forms. And it's very commendable that all the people involved, bill haimer and miss west and the staff and particularly tina morton worked to make sure that what needed to be done gets done. So many times we run into excuses, we can't do this and we can't do that. This is so much trouble. You never heard that from Travis County, never from any of the staff here. The attitude has always been there's a way. We'll find it. We'll get it done. And this award is well deserved. We tested the site again this morning before coming to your meeting, and can tell you that as is always true in the computer world, there's always true for improvement. And we found a few things to make it even better. And that's going to happen. And so this is a good day for Travis County to be pleased that you are indeed a world leader in making sure that your local government processes are accessible to all of your citizens because by make ing it accessible to all of your citizens, then you're making sure that people can vote, people can pay their taxes, people can do all the thing that they're required to do as citizens of the county, and I just wanted to take this opportunity to commend the staff, all those working on the project, and you at the Commissioners court in proposing it this. And I would tell you again as I did a year ago, you're also the leader in having the most accessible, juried duty process in the united states. Your process there is also outstanding. It's very easy, very straightforward. A person can do it. No problems at all. It's wonderful. So keep up the good work. We're going to continue to work together and continue to make this process better and better as we move along.
>> can you tell me, I guess working with. Thank you. That's very well acceptance. When I tell you -- I guess I'll ask the person that brought the website together. I'm beginning to wonder is there anywhere else in the state of Texas as far as the county is concerned that is at the same level of what's been demonstrated and experienced here in Travis County. A lot of soak folks have serious -- a lot of folk have serious visual challenges. Can you give me any inkling on what is in the think tank or what's going on with other counties that also have residents that also have challenge.
>> to my knowledge I think a lot of the websites the counties have and cities have in the state of Texas especially are probably 508 compliant, which is a federal law, but I believe that we've gone here and Travis County has gone before compliance, quite honestly. Y'all have set the bar for a very high standard for the entire state of Texas. So I don't believe anybody to my knowledge is at your level of compliance and gone so far beyond compliance like y'all have. Because I think frances' comment is right on the money. We want it to be usable. We want it to be usable by the visually impaired and all the citizens. And just kind of a couple of quick statistics. Last year y'all had about four and a half million people touch that website. This year through yesterday you had four million. So four and a half million for all of last year, four and a half million already through yul 16th. So I commend you all again. Y'all are an awesome group and way to go.
>> I appreciate that.
>> you and ms. West are always welcome to come to Travis County.
>> exactly.
>> we appreciate that a great deal, sir.
>> and maybe i.b.m. Could contribute several laptop computers to increase access for early voting.
>> I would except we got out of the pc business. We sold it.
>> y'all have friends in the pc business.
>> [overlapping speakers] you can purchase on discount on the friends and family program.
>> would we qualify as friends and family as a county government? I don't know.
>> I do want to say one thing about this computer world award. The reason that Travis County got selected is because really the leadership position you nook took in this area, and the best practices are being gathered and actually will be archived with the library of congress, which means that -- and also the best practice is distributed to all the computer world customers around the globe. So your story is being passed into various parts of the world. And we already have gotten inquiry from other countries even. For example, we've talked about Travis County with a county in china. They are in the process of trying to create their digital infrastructure for their e-government. So what you're doing here has worldwide implication and we are very proud of being part of this process under the leadership of nelda and the cio, dusty knight.
>> thank you. Technology sometimes leaves some people behind, but in this process, technology can put all people ahead.
>> we can bridge the gap, absolutely. Thank you. Pue e ee,,,]ettt
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>> [ applause ]
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, July 18, 2007, 18:30 AM