What TWC Looks for in a Partner

At an Industry Insider — Texas briefing, Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) Deputy CIO Jeffery Peden revealed the No. 1 quality the agency looks for in a partner: accessibility.

“When the only way you can navigate a page is with a screen reader or tabbing through a page, it’s a different experience than if you’ve got a mouse and a keyboard,” said Peden. “When you bring us a product, please bring us a product that has been tested and designed with that in mind up front … graphical user interfaces are great, but they don’t work if you can’t see them.”

Peden, who is responsible for infrastructure and support at TWC, stressed the importance of implementing accessibility functions before pitching applications and solutions to the agency.

“If you’ve got something that somebody’s designed, you can navigate through with a tab, [where] you can turn off the monitor and see if you navigate through and manipulate your application, and you bring something like that to us right off the bat, you’re going to catch a lot of attention right there,” he said. “That’s a step that most vendors still don’t do.”

Peden also mentioned additional offerings that vendors can bundle into services to ease staff responsibilities, such as training, location services and implementation services, as factors that can make proposed solutions more appealing.

TWC Deputy CIO Judy Sandberg, who is responsible for IT planning and project management, added that vendors with relationships with the Department of Information Resources (DIR) have a distinct advantage above those that don’t.

“If you are not associated with DIR and have a cooperative with DIR, I urge you to make that happen, or at least partner with a vendor who is, because we’re limited on who we can partner with,” said Sandberg. “So many times we’ll see a great offering and we have to literally go through an exemption process that requires executive director approval to send to the DIR and then 30 days to get it approved.”

TWC CIO Heather Hall also spoke at the briefing, where she revealed the agency's plans for multiple upcoming projects.