Overview
The challenge: The Travis County, Texas Office of the Tax Assessor-Collector wanted to provide more services online to the greatest number of constituents, including citizens who have disabilities.
The solution: IBM teamed up with Hamer Enterprises, a premier provider of software solutions and consulting services for state and local governments in the U.S. Together, they planned, developed, and deployed a Web site solution that is more accessible to the county's 800,000+ constituents.
The benefit:
- Enables government to better reach and respond to the public.
- Improves levels of customer service on the Web.
- Offered an enhanced citizen experience.
- Increases customer satisfaction.
Travis County roll-out
Travis County, Texas wanted to update its tax payment and voter qualification and registration systems. In October 2004, the Chief Operating Officer's (COO) office turned to Hamer Enterprises to roll out a software solution enabled Travis County citizens to quickly register to vote, track taxes, and pay court fees online. Many constituents were pleased with the time-saving systems, but there was a group that felt shut out—people with disabilities.
"To our dismay, within days after we proudly launched this Web site, we were contacted by the customer stating that many of their citizens were unable to access the services because the site was not accessible. We learned quickly that "accessibility" is vitally important to ensure information and services are accessible to more citizens, customers, and employees, regardless of their abilities or disabilities."
Bill Hamer, CEO
Hamer Enterprises
Hamer sees an opportunity
Bill Hamer reacted immediately to the call for more accessible systems. He enlisted Adobe and Freedom Scientific to help make the Travis County site accessible for people who had disabilities. Together, the three companies were able to make significant strides. Yet, the Travis County COO's office wanted the site to be more robust and accessible.
At the same time, the IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center team wanted to work with a partner to pilot a government-industry Web site solution that was truly accessible. Hamer Enterprises was prominent on the list of strategic IBM partners who serve the government industry and work on Web-based solutions.
Working together
IBM and Hamer have worked together, in concert with Travis County, to address accessibility requirements early in the planning, design, development, testing, and deployment phases of an updated Web site that is both innovative and accessible.
"We are an IBM Business Partner, experienced in selling turnkey solutions to state and local governments that include solutions such as iSeries™, xSeries® and WebSphere® software from IBM. To develop an accessible Web site, our team needed training on accessibility and designing, developing, testing, and deploying an accessible Web site."
Bill Hamer, CEO
Hamer Enterprises
The IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center and IBM Developer Relations created a hands-on training session that enabled the Hamer development team to integrate accessibility requirements into the development process for the updated Travis County Web site. Innovative IBM accessibility technologies and solutions allowed Hamer's Web developers to check and validate the accessibility and usability of the site before deployment. The accessible Travis County Web site was launched in the summer of 2006.
Easing access for citizens
As this pilot project for Travis County demonstrates, when accessibility issues are addressed early in the development cycle, the result is a solution that is citizen-centric and accommodates the needs of a wide range of users—including people who have disabilities, the maturing population, and others. IBM can help similar development efforts by:
- Training developers to use IBM WebSphere development tools.
- Sharing IBM technologies and processes that contribute to accessible applications.
Now, Travis County residents—both those who have disabilities and those who do not—have easier access to county government information through a single online source. Because of the cooperation between IBM, Hamer Enterprises, and Travis County, constituents are able to view well-organized information and use one Web site, day or night, to do business online.
"We believe this will demonstrate how striving for accessibility helps to provide a better user experience and fulfill our mandate to serve all the people. When we deploy our new Web site, more citizens will experience greater access to government information and services, enabling us to better reach and respond to the public, now and in the future."
Dusty Knight,
Chief Operating Officer
Travis County
© Copyright IBM Corporation
IBM, the IBM logo, iSeries WebSphere and xSeries are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United Sates, other countries, or both.
Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.
This customer success story is based on information provided by Hamer Enterprises and Travis County, Texas and illustrates how two organizations use IBM products. Many factors may have contributed to the results and benefits described. IBM does not guarantee comparable results elsewhere.
IBM's provision of products or services does not constitute the provision of legal advice and IBM does not represent or warrant that its services or products will guarantee or assist your compliance with any law or regulation. You are solely responsible for identifying, interpreting, and ensuring your compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and rules relevant to your business and should seek competent legal advice as needed.