How Professional Services Firm EY Is Making Government’s Online Presences Accessible To All Citizens

Early last month, London-based professional services company EY released a report which examined why digital accessibility is so important to invest in and how companies can best achieve it. The report, underwritten by EY, is called Delivering Digital Access and Equity in the Public Sector (PDF). It surveyed 178 governmental leaders (federal, state, county, and municipal), customer experience, and IT professionals to uncover what, if any, strides are being made to amplify digital accessibility for the disabled contingent of the citizenry.

“The public sector continues to make strides to make the digital delivery of services and the customer experience more equitable and accessible across the constituents they serve,” EY wrote in the report’s executive summary. “FedScoop and StateScoop [both are media orgs focused on tech in government] surveyed 178 prequalified federal, state, county, and municipal government leaders, customer experience and IT decision-makers to learn about the progress they’re making in improving [customer experience] and service delivery, as well as the roles modern infrastructure and connectivity play in support of those efforts.”

Among the numerous high-level takeaways from its research, EY shared that “nearly half” of state and local respondents (39% of them at the federal level) said it’s a top priority for agencies to “ensure constituents of all abilities can easily obtain the information and services they seek.” Similarly, 9 in 10 of state and local responders (8 in 10 federally) said “their leaders are aware of the potential obstacles ‘all’ or ‘some’ populations” encounter when trying to access services and needed information. Many agencies at all levels of government have plans to increase innovation in terms of accessibility and equality, according to EY.

The publication of EY’s report coincided with the launch of its all-new Center for Government Modernization. In an interview via email in late March, Chris Gianutsos, who works as EY’s design leader for US government and public sector innovation and experience, told me he “[spends] a lot of time thinking about how the private sector’s approach to customer experience can be better utilized by the public in order to improve the methods by which they inform, engage and interact with their constituents and residents.” His life’s work, he added, has been primarily spent “at the intersection of design, technology, process improvement and data using those principles to help organizations transform digitally.”

Asked to describe the Center, Gianutsos reiterated EY’s mission.

“The EY Center for Government Modernization is an initiative featuring new insights showing how government can modernize to innovate at scale, deliver at speed and keep people at the Center,” he said of its purpose. “Through original surveys and reports, the Center highlights how technology-enabled solutions and the purposeful use of data can help solve the multifaceted issues faced by government agencies. By exploring these best practices—spanning cybersecurity, supply chain, workforce transformation, technology, finance and more—the Center will support public sector leaders in their transformation efforts.”

Gianutsos went on to add the Center “is foundational to our mission by serving as a convener” of what he called cutting-edge research and insights from industry experts. Moreover, he explained the Center will serve as a conduit through which EY can “highlight many of our incredible modernization stories and solutions” such as harnessing artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, as well as other types of automation, in order to help streamline operational processes. In essence, EY wants to brag about its ability to work more efficiently.

As for what motivated EY to commission the report, Gianutsos explained the organization sought to “challenge” governmental bodies to consider digital access in a more holistic way rather than merely doing the bare minimum to meet regulatory compliance. Bureaucracy has its place, Gianutsos said, but sheer compliance for accessibility doesn’t equate to a good, never mind great, user experience. Oftentimes, clients of Gianutsos will say they’re focused on accessibility, but their approach to doing so is limited to the basics to meet the aforementioned compliance standards set by Section 508 and other guidelines. Likewise, his clients have a tendency to think about accessibility in a strict classical sense—that is, really only moving to serve those with “legally defined accessibility needs” and disabilities, Gianutsos said. Again, EY’s goal is to push clients to look at accessibility and digital equality in a well-rounded, holistic fashion. Beyond the obvious need to accommodate disabilities, Gianutsos and team want to get people to consider accessibility broadly. He hopes people will also start thinking of it in terms of limited access to broadband internet or limited technical fluency.

“We believe government agencies have an obligation to create great experiences for everyone who is interacting with that agency and may be going from physical to digital and back again,” Gianutsos said of the imperative for empathy in tech. “We also think it’s important that organizations put in a mechanism to continually pulse people who have these challenges to find out how they’re doing; in our research, this ongoing data collection is not done broadly or systematically.”

In broad terms, Gianutsos believes society as a collective is increasingly “becoming aware of the importance of ensuring equitable experiences for everyone.” He pointed to Generation Z in particular, saying change often happens generationally and that Gen Z is readily focused on all matters of equality and inclusivity. At a bureaucratic level, Gianutsos said the government is becoming much more attuned to the experiential aspect of using technology. He cited the Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government signed by President Biden in December 2021 that, Gianutsos said, “really does highlight how important it is to have a customer-focused approach, as many times those who have the most acute needs also have accessibility challenges.” To do this well, he said, requires adopting a mindset focused on prioritizing inclusive design, which itself requires the active participation of the target market (cf. the disability community) in shaping what said design looks like in practice. Crucially, this must be an ongoing process—after all, accessibility will forever be an evergreen topic, not a checkbox or an endpoint.

Feedback-wise, clients have been receptive to this topic while readily acknowledging there’s lots more work yet to be done, according to Gianutsos. “We are seeing more interest in learning from the private sector in terms of what works well,” he said. “In many cases, clients have created personas that represent the needs and moments that matter to some of these customers. Now the challenge [for clients] is creating journeys that represent great customer experiences and not ones built around internal processes, requirements and regulations.”

These sentiments speak to Gianutsos’ belief that humans are the heart of change.

“I firmly believe that every transformation should start with a human-centered design exercise, even if the only customers are internal,” he said of how to best tackle change. “You can speed up processes or implement the greatest technology in the world, but if you haven’t thought through the human implications, it is almost certain the project won’t deliver on all the planned or expected benefits.”