The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Government-wide IT Accessibility Program will host an IT Accessibility Community Meeting on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM ET.
Join Cindy Schaffner, Senior Accessibility Specialist, and Hope Turner, USCIS Design System Program Manager, to learn how designers can prevent costly accessibility rework through thoughtful design.
Cindy presents real-world Section 508 compliance problems — including recurring issues that appear across multiple projects — found in audits, while Hope demonstrates how designers could have prevented them early in the design phase when changes are quick and inexpensive.
Discover how collaborating with developers, and accessibility testers, during design can shift accessibility left, reducing expensive post-development remediation and errors. Designers have more power than they realize to create compliant products from the start and share the responsibility of accessibility compliance.
Presenters
Cindy Schaffner - Senior Accessibility Specialist
Hope Turner - USCIS Design System Program Manager
Event Details
DATE: Tuesday, October 13, 2026
TIME: 1:00 PM ET
WHERE: Virtual
WHO: Section 508 Program Managers, Chief Information Officers, designers, developers, accessibility testers, and product teams.
Registration
Live captioning and ASL interpreting are available for each IT Accessibility Community Meeting. If you require any other accommodations for this virtual event, please email section.508@gsa.gov by Thursday, October 8, 2026.
Notices
- This virtual meeting will be hosted on Zoom for Government (FedRAMP certified). You may join using a personal device.
- Participants must join using their first and last name; agency affiliation is optional. Access will not be granted to nicknames or unidentified phone numbers.
- Members of the press must self-identify during registration.
- The meeting will be recorded for internal use. The host may share, publish, or distribute the recording without additional notice. By attending, you consent to this use.
