At the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) Midyear Conference in Philadelphia, state accessibility officers sounded the alarm that many government agencies are behind and will need to work quickly to comply.
The Department of Justice issued a rule in April 2024 clarifying and strengthening accessibility requirements for state and local government websites and mobile apps under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The update aims to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to essential government services and information online.
Common existing barriers to equal access include governments posting information in PDFs, which are not always compatible with screen readers, missing alternative text captions for those who cannot see images, creating video content that does not include captions and using keyboard navigation barriers that exclude those unable to use a mouse.
The process of correcting barriers will take significant resources to audit decades worth of web pages and online content to identify non-compliant assets and update them.
“It’s got a lot of us scrambling, some folks were already kind of ahead of that, a lot of people are just trying to catch up and a lot of people are just being caught or blindsided because they have a very immature program right now,” said Marie Cohan, Texas' statewide digital accessibility program administrator, in an interview with Government Technology.
Cohan said many local agencies she works with have asked her where to start. To help, she’s put together a road map for local Texas governments and school districts.
Minnesota Chief Information Accessibility Officer Jay Wyant said putting an accessibility policy in place can also be a big first step to help foster buy-in from the entire government entity. He echoed Cohan’s sentiment that having an accessibility officer at the state level can provide critical leadership in helping local governments navigate the transition.
He added that archiving content and creating templates with high accessibility standards can be helpful for a smooth transition rather than hacking “bits and pieces” at a time. Regardless, to meet the deadline, governments will need to decide where the extra resources to ensure the guidelines are met will come from.
"As we know, resources aren't unlimited," said Wyant. "They're going to have to make difficult decisions about how to allocate the time. That's why they have to start now."
Cohan added she is hopeful that the new ruling will signal a long-lasting emphasis on technology that is usable by all.
“I hope this is not a temporary blip where we’re all trying to catch up and once we get compliant we all kind of lay low. This is something that’s going to need to keep up with technology,” Cohan said. “When we’re developing technology we need to think of the three most important things: privacy, accessibility and security. That should be No. 1 from the very beginning.”
