The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, and state and local government services. Yet, despite this longstanding legislation, our nation continues to ignore many of the needs of people with disabilities. For example, studies have repeatedly identified thousands of miles of inaccessible sidewalks across U.S. cities.
Many municipal digital properties are similarly inaccessible. Thirty-four years ago, when the ADA was signed into law, our world was primarily offline. But the emergence of the internet means that most organizations now have a digital presence in addition to a physical one. Both should be equally accessible to everyone.
Fortunately, 2024 was a watershed year for digital accessibility. In April, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a final rule under Title II of the ADA that requires state and local governments to improve their digital services so they can be more easily used by people with disabilities.
There’s popular support for this ruling: in a survey conducted by CivicPlus, 77% of citizens agreed that improving web accessibility would help all citizens. That’s sensible, given the fact that the median age of Americans is now almost 40 years old – and is expected to increase as the baby boomer population ages. Right now, over one quarter of Americans over age 70 suffer from a vision impairment, defined as a loss of eyesight that cannot be corrected to normal vision.
The inability to access critical government services is harmful to citizens. And it’s also damaging to government entities. A study by the Center for Democracy and Technology revealed that some online hiring assessments may discriminate against workers with disabilities. That prevents government agencies from a larger pool of workers, at a time when employee recruitment is difficult. It also means that there are many government websites and other digital properties funded by taxpayer dollars that remain underutilized.
What Kind of Issues Impact Digital Accessibility?
Citizens who are legally blind rely on screen readers to “view” websites. These require alternative text (aka “alt text” tags) on images to describe what is being shown. While many sites employ alternative text, it’s often descriptive only and lacks context. In some cases, the alternative text is written for Google image searches, instead of human users. Many sites also ignore the use of heading tags to structure pages, making it hard for users to understand how the content they are reading is organized.
Website text also needs to feature enough color contrast to make it readable. An estimated 86% of home pages don’t display sufficient text color contrast. The ability to perceive color contrast can also be impacted by aging. Similarly, roughly 8% of the male population in the US is color blind. Website content, charts and graphs can be rendered useless if they aren’t designed to be viewable by people with color blindness.
Blindness might be the first accessibility issue that comes to mind, but it’s not the only one that government agencies need to consider. Site visitors with hearing loss need to be able to read captions on audio or video content. Digital properties that feature flashing lights or other animated effects can pose a seizure hazard for epileptics. Users with motor impairments that prevent mouse usage cannot navigate or interact with a website if it doesn’t have effective tab key functionality.
What is the Deadline for Compliance with These New Accessibility Rules?
Fortunately, there’s some time factored in to comply. State and local governments must make sure that their web content and mobile apps meet WCAG 2.1, Level AA by April 26, 2027 for government entities serving under 50,000 citizens; and by April 24, 2026 for entities serving larger populations.
What Does Your Agency Need to Do to Become ADA Compliant?
1) Audit your digital properties. The growth in digital tools means that your organization may support many digital properties, like customer kiosks, phone apps, and chatbots, which have historically not been developed with accessibility in mind. Ensure that any properties created by third party partners are also compliant. Required improvements include:
- Website text and other elements need to feature strong color contrast
- Alternative text should be assigned to every image, including those on social media
- Navigation needs to be possible without a mouse, and the site should give the user an understanding of what field on the screen currently has the cursor
- Digital elements like error messages, popup forms, and mouse hover effects should be simple and easily usable by all visitors
- Image-based PDF files should be replaced by screen-readable versions
- Videos should be clearly captioned
2) Be aware of what you must comply with, and what isn’t required. Government apps and websites need to meet WCAG 2.1, Level AA requirements. But there are some exceptions:
- Archived web content is grandfathered into this, as long as it is kept for recordkeeping or research, is stored in an archived area, and has not been changed since it was archived.
- Some content posted on a government site by third parties (such as comments) is also excluded from the regulations; however other third-party content; for example, maps or payment systems, needs to be compliant.
3) Bear in mind that some state and local anti-discrimination laws, such as California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, may apply to government entities and supersede ADA requirements.
4) Although there are deadlines for compliance, accessibility will always remain a work in progress. Our understanding of disabilities and user experience, and the technologies at our disposal, will continue to expand.
How to Get Started Improving Your Website’s Accessibility
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a long-standing international organization dedicated to standards for the web. Their website on accessibility is a good starting point. The site includes a list of tools, many of which are free, that can be used to evaluate website accessibility. The Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology hosts a website on accessibility topics, including this useful guide to PDF accessibility.
