Government websites are littered with accessibility issues, research finds
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By
Chris Teale
A separate survey found that while local leaders understand the importance of making their pages accessible to those with disabilities, it’s hard to find the staff, time or money to make the changes necessary.
Large governments have just over a year to comply with a federal rule on website accessibility, and two recent reports have shone a light on how much work still lies ahead.
Web accessibility software company AudioEye scanned almost 35,000 pages across nearly 800 government websites for its 2025 Digital Accessibility Index and found that the average page had 307 accessibility violations, including images without alt text, a lack of clear color contrast, keyboard accessibility issues and links that are not clear to all users.
Separately, a joint survey by local government software company CivicPlus and nonprofit research group CivicPulse found that while local officials recognize the importance of web accessibility, as a priority it has fallen behind other needs, and a lack of staff time to devote to the issue and get properly trained is a major obstacle to compliance.
The research comes as the Department of Justice has required that state and local governments with 50,000 or more people comply with a section of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which the DOJ said applies to online content, by June 2026. Those with populations of fewer than 50,000 people have another year to comply. And both show how far many governments still have to go on their journey towards accessible websites, even as many vital services are primarily online.
“Folks understand ADA compliance when it comes to the physical world: sidewalks being a certain width, accessibility for bathrooms, drinking fountains and so forth,” said Brenden Elwood, vice president of market research at CivicPlus. “Making that leap to the digital world is a leap. We have a lot of codes and ordinances that require [ADA compliance]. Taking that thinking and applying it to whatever you're going to do as far as your digital engagement goes is a necessary step, and it's a logical step.”
The issues that AudioEye found in government websites are stark. Fifty-one percent of pages the company reviewed fail keyboard accessibility standards, which require the site to be usable entirely with a keyboard. That figure is more than any other industry or sector. More than a quarter — 28% — of images lack alt text, AudioEye found, which can make it harder for people with visual disabilities to access information.
Each page, on average, violated the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines on color contrast 75.4 times, meaning that text would too often blend into the background and make it harder for people with low vision to navigate.
“People can get indoors, people can walk on sidewalks,” said Mike Paciello, AudioEye’s chief accessibility officer. “Can people get into websites? Can they interact with the forms? Can they buy things on a government site? Their whole fundamental basis of business is service. It's very service oriented.”
One of the biggest issues in getting government websites up to compliance is a lack of staff time and training to implement needed changes, CivicPlus and CivicPulse found. Their survey of elected officials, appointees and agency heads found that 41% of local government leaders said staff not having the time to get websites up to compliance was a “significant” barrier to web accessibility. More than a third — 35% — said a lack of financial resources were a significant barrier, while 32% blamed a lack of staff training and awareness.
“There is certainly pretty widespread understanding that it's a problem that needs to be addressed,” said Nathan Lee, CivicPulse’s CEO. “Where understanding is less widespread, or at least more variable, is around exactly just the scope of what needs to be done. The devil's in the details. It's the website redesign, but it's also the website changes, but it's also about documentation. It's also about processes that lead to those changes in the documents.”
It can be difficult for governments to find the time, money and staff to devote to this issue, especially given the other pressures they face. But Elwood said one thing that can help is identifying a “champion” within government who can take the issue on and advocate for it to receive more attention. A key part of that internal champion’s efforts should revolve around raising awareness, he said, as well as finding creative ways to solve compliance problems.
The future may be murky in this area, especially when it comes to the federal government's enforcement of the ADA rule. But Paciello said even if the DOJ plays a diminished role in this area moving forward, states can lead the way and help local governments get up to snuff. He also argued that a national nonprofit could take the lead in keeping tabs on government website accessibility that is “well versed” in this area.
“It’s a matter of getting it funded,” he said.
Paciello said that websites must be designed with both usability and accessibility “joined at the hip.” For too long, he said, developers have been focused on websites being usable but have failed to consider how usability can be different for different people, especially those with disabilities.
“You could create a site that looks like it's usable to every user, and in fact it's not accessible to people with disabilities, and you can create a site that's successful to people with disabilities, but they're horrible, their workflows are terrible, the navigational schemes are terrible,” Paciello said. “Yet you have to wonder what thought was really put in at the requirements level, at the design level.”