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Reminder: Technology Accessibility Program (TAP) Open Office Hours will be led by Dylan Marcy during the month of August. The TAP team will be back to facilitate as of Sept. 1.
Accessibility Software Now Available For State Agencies
As part of TAP’s efforts to assist agencies in their accessibility efforts, several software licenses are now available for state agency accessibility specialists.
- Unlimited licenses will be available for:
- JAWS/Fusion/ZoomText (see note below for hardware requirements): JAWS is technology for screen reader users, Zoomtext is a screen magnifier, and Fusion is the combo of both
- JAWS Inspect (coming soon): Used for non-screen reader users to test screen reader functionality of websites and applications
- Software limited to three licenses per agency:
- Acrobat DC Pro: Accessibility tool used in the software to check and remediate accessibility issues in PDFs
- CommonLook (coming soon): a plug-in tool that pairs with Acrobat DC to make PDFs (and Word/Powerpoint) documents accessible by properly structuring the HTML of documents (essentially, properly tags documents)
- Limited availability, upon request to TAP Team:
- Otter.ai (coming soon): web platform tool used to create live and static transcripts for multimedia files such as zoom meetings and mp4 videos
Software with unlimited licenses can be requested through the Customer Service Portal. For software with limited licenses, submit the online TAP Software form.
Please contact the TAP team at OIT_Accessibility@state.co.us with any questions.
Note: the JAWS/ZoomText/Fusion software has advanced minimum hardware requirements that include:
- i7 Processor
- 16GB
- 256GB SSD
- Windows 10
- Dedicated Graphics Card with 512GB RAM or more
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Welcome New Team Members!
We are pleased to welcome four new team members to TAP. Our new solutions engineers are:
- Beckie Bean
- Brian Stafford
- Kate Miller
- Chelsea Cook
Each of these talented people will use their incredible knowledge and experience to assist the TAP team develop the tools and resources for state agencies’ use to meet the goals laid out in HB21-1110. They will also be assigned to support a portfolio of state agencies with their accessibility-related efforts. We look forward to introducing agencies to their dedicated point person and providing more information in the near future.
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Time for Reflection
Public sector agencies have been working diligently over the past 10 months (or more!) to meet their responsibilities under HB21-1110. As noted in our July newsletter, state agencies achieved a major milestone when they submitted their IT Accessibility Adoption Plans on time.
Now it’s time to reflect on not just what we have done but why we have done it. This isn’t the first step in a long journey, but rather the latest step in a longtime push for equality. Beyond making sure we meet the legal requirements of the bill, it’s important to remember the people who benefit from our efforts to make digital technology accessible. These are your colleagues, constituents, customers, friends and family. They may have one or more disabilities and our efforts help them more easily navigate state services and programs.
Every disability is as different as a thumbprint. There is no one “disability experience” or singular way to talk or think about people with disabilities. When we think of people with disabilities we must think of all the ways in which they read, listen to, process and understand the content and services we give them. Even people with similar disabilities can have very different experiences or accessibility needs. By making sure the State of Colorado can meet everyone where they are, we must do what we can to provide a more welcoming and inclusive government. That’s the real difference we are making!
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Accessibility Resources
Please note that the Accessibility Open Office Hours (for state government only) have changed and will meet on Thursdays from 9-10 a.m. We will no longer meet on Tuesdays.
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