Operation Rising Tide: Cognitive disability accommodations for the workforce

Описание: 2023 Government UX Summit: Driving innovation through inclusion - Session 3b

Government agencies use a range of internal systems to perform their duties, many of which are purpose-built by any number of diverse teams. The design and architecture of these systems is typically focused on fulfilling specific requirements without regard to usability. Currently, there is no established approach to assess or ensure usability of internal government systems regularly used by an agency’s workforce. This results in application-specific design and function that is often unintuitive, brittle, and places undue burden on the user. Likewise, users are required to learn application-specific operations which do not generalize to other systems.

Issues related to usability and user experience affect all users, especially the 5% of the workforce with cognitive and learning disabilities. People with cognitive and learning disabilities have greater difficulty navigating complicated workflows than those without such disabilities. Because everyone has cognitive limits that can vary due to stress, fatigue, and distraction, all users benefit when processes are easily navigated by individuals with cognitive and learning disabilities. Existing policies for disability accommodations under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 can be applied to improve government systems and increase productivity and morale for everyone.

The presenters will brief Operation Rising Tide, which is an initiative intended to improve usability of internal government systems by accommodating individuals with cognitive and learning disabilities as required under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Speakers
Gordon Banks—General Engineer, Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)
MAJ Kirk Shoemaker—Nuclear and Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Officer, U.S. Army, DTRA

Event page: https://digital.gov/event/2023/06/14/...

Accessible slides: https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/s...