Feds offer help complying with website accessibility rule

Time is ticking for state and local governments to make sure they comply with a final rule from the Department of Justice designed to make their websites more accessible, and now the federal government is offering help on how to get there.

The DOJ last week unveiled a toolkit to help states and localities comply with a section of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which the department clarified last year applies to online content. in a bid to address the accessibility challenges facing government websites.

Governments with 50,000 people or more have until June 2026 to comply, while those with fewer than 50,000 people have until June 2027. The Justice Department estimated that compliance costs, which include remediating existing content and ensuring continued compliance, will be in the millions.

Those accessibility challenges include small text, a lack of captions for live audio and forms with hard-to-follow instructions, just some of the issues that make it harder for users with disabilities to access services and interact with government agencies. The rule is designed to have governments comply with internationally recognized standards from the World Wide Web Consortium. DOJ said the benefits of compliance are tremendous.

“When state and local governments comply with the rule, people with disabilities will have much more reliable access to critical government services like registering to vote, attending public schools and universities, applying for government benefits, requesting that potholes be filled, watching public hearings, and many more,” the toolkit says. “State and local governments will also be able to function better.”

DOJ recommends that governments take a series of steps to comply with the rule. First, the department said governments must learn the rule’s requirements thoroughly and understand their obligations. Government leaders also must work out when they must fully comply with the rule, based on their population via data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Within that, the department said governments should also make sure they have identified the rule’s exceptions, including for archived web content, preexisting electronic documents like PDFs, content by third parties, password-protected documents and social media posts.

Justice said the next step should be for governments to identify who in their organization will have a role in complying with the rule, although the agency acknowledged that will vary across jurisdictions. A state or local government’s Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator is a good place to start, DOJ said, as well as IT staff and web developers who will help promote accessibility of online content and procurement officials who buy or license web content and apps.

Staff need “clear expectations,” DOJ said, to ensure that they are all aware of the role they will play in compliance. That can also “start creating a culture of accessibility in your state or local government,” the department added. And it may be that governments need extra staff and volunteers to help comply, including by hearing from people with diverse perspectives. Leaving all the work to contractors is not the solution, however.

“If you decide to have an outside person or group handle some of your public entity’s accessibility work, it’s still a good idea to identify a person or people in your public entity who will oversee or coordinate that work,” DOJ said. “Your public entity is still responsible for ensuring the accessibility of its web content and mobile apps, even if it outsources the accessibility work to somebody else.”

Government staff will also need training to comply with the rule, especially on what accessibility means for online content and why it is important, DOJ said. Different staff members may need specialized training depending on their duties and responsibilities, too. For example, designers and marketing staff might need training on accessibility and visual design, while web developers and content testers might need training on accessible coding solutions.

The toolkit then recommends that governments identify what web content and mobile apps they have, including what types of content they have on those pages’ social media presence. Identifying that content can then help governments work out where to focus their efforts. Then they must determine what needs to comply and what is exempt, which fixes are needed and when. Prioritization is crucial.

“As you work up to full compliance, you may not be able to tackle all the issues for every type of your public entity’s content at once,” the toolkit says. “You might want to think about prioritizing some content to fix right away, while leaving other content to address later.”

DOJ said complying with the final rule will not only help a state or locality’s residents interact better but will also help governments work better.

“Web and mobile app inaccessibility can also make it harder for state and local governments to function,” the toolkit says. “For example, if a state government’s online tax form is inaccessible to people with disabilities, it can make it hard for the government to efficiently collect taxes.”

This effort could be moot soon, with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office this month. DOJ had tried to undertake a similar rule-making effort in this area in 2016 during the final months of the Obama administration, only to abandon it during the first year of Trump’s first term.