Government Summit Detailed Schedule

Time

Session

Description

Speaker(s)

Government Summit Committee

Agileana

In 2021, the White House issued an Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce. Raising the priority of accessibility to the same level as diversity, equity, and inclusion has allowed many agencies to direct resources and improvement efforts to their accessibility programs.

Learn from a panel of federal agency representatives on how improving accessibility in their agencies has changed since the issuance of the Executive Order.

Mike Gifford (Moderator)

Senior Strategist, W3C Invited Expert, Accessibility/Sustainability, Drupal Core Accessibility Maintainer

Brooke Aiken

Section 508 Program Manager, FDIC

Jasmyne Epps

Product Manager, Georgia Technology Authority

Martha Wilkes

Accessibility Strategist, Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of the CTO

Coffee Break

Case Study: Developing a Testing Strategy for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services

Sponsored by Palantir.net

Are you dealing with a large website that lacks a testing plan? In this session, Ken Rickard from Palantir.net will share insights into developing a testing strategy for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services' website, which underwent a migration from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 as part of an enterprise replatforming project.

Ken will discuss various testing options, including code quality, accessibility, visual regression, and functional and unit testing, available through Drupal core, contributed modules, and third-party tools. He'll provide guidance on identifying and prioritizing appropriate testing types for different situations.

Additionally, the session will delve into collaborating with clients to help their stakeholders comprehend the value and importance of a robust testing strategy. Join us to learn valuable tips and techniques for establishing a comprehensive testing plan for your large-scale web projects.

Case Study: Transforming Outreach and Connectedness among Martin County, Florida’s 1,100 employees

Sponsored by Promet Source

Background

Promet migrated the Martin County, Florida website to Drupal 7 in 2016 and continued to cultivate a strong partnership with subsequent initiatives that included site redesign, a Drupal 9 migration, ongoing support, and an employee intranet.

The Challenge

Too often state and local government agencies devote a depth of resources and focus on streamlined navigation and aesthetically engaging web journeys for citizens, but don’t consider employees in the process.

For Martin County, the lack of a robust, easily navigable intranet meant that employees were sometimes receiving three to four emails a day. Confusion about how to find needed forms led to frequent calls and outreach to HR.

The Solution

Development of a robust intranet within the existing Drupal CMS, that served as an easily searchable repository of documents and information.

Case Study: Empowering the Underdog - How Drupal and NCLC's Legal Resources Promote Justice for All

Sponsored by Platform.sh

Discover how Drupal empowered vulnerable citizens and their advocates by providing equitable access to legal and governmental resources from the National Consumer Law Center.

The NCLC library provides access to a large repository of consumer laws, and endless references to previous cases and comments. Having this access empowers smaller firms to better represent ordinary citizens against larger enterprises.

There were a number of challenges that need to be solved for the library website, and this case study explores:

- Upgrading from Drupal 7

- Setting up a subscription content system with Drupal Commerce

- Using Solr to manage an advanced search index

- Leveraging React within Drupal to provide content in an in-site bookreader with shareable features

Headless Drupal is a hot topic, but be careful to not reinvent the wheel… badly. In this cautionary tale, learn about the US Small Business Administration’s long journey from a bloated D7 site, to a fully-decoupled D8 site, to a back-to-basics, recoupled D9/D10 site that’s more accessible, more performant, easier to maintain, and has the content managers loving Drupal again!



In 2018, the SBA knew something had to be done about its beast of a Drupal 7 site, with 218 modules and technical debt for miles. The new site PO, SBA’s Ryan Hillard, wanted to bring the agency’s forms and processes onto the site, and decoupled Drupal was the solution.



But in going headless, the site became a terrible user experience for both system administrators and content editors, with a bloated React app, overcomplicated middleware, and dozens of microservices and Lambda redirects. This became painfully obvious during SBA’s key role in the COVID-19 response.



In 2022 the site was rebuilt in D9 with a “Let Drupal be Drupal” philosophy. By saving React for the handful of pages that truly need app-like functionality, the new site is easier to maintain and update for both developers and content editors and allows for a faster response time in the case of disasters.

Denise Amling

Director of Agile, Bixal 

Tia Calloway

Senior Art Director, Capital One

Ryan Hillard

Systems Developer, U.S. Small Business Administration

John Shortess

Technology Lead, Bixal