WebAIM's Roadmap to Meeting the ADA Title II Requirements
Introduction
In April 2024, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) issued new regulations for entities covered under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The new regulations provide specific requirements for covered entities' websites and mobile apps. As detailed in the ADA Title II Action Guide for State and Local Governments, Title II entities include:
[S]tate and local governments including state executive agencies, courts, legislatures, towns, cities, counties, school districts, universities, community colleges, water districts, special purpose districts, regional transit authorities, other state and local government instrumentalities and AMTRAK.
Covered entities have two or three years from the publication of the regulations to meet their requirements, with the conformance deadlines based on population counts. Most entities have until April 24, 2026. Entities serving a population under 50,000 and special district governments have until April 26, 2027. DOJ provides guidance on calculating population size.
We have created a summary of the regulations with some interpretation. The Department of Justice also published a fact sheet about the rule and a Small Entity Compliance Guide.
Web content under the rule includes typical website content such as images, text, and multimedia. A mobile app is software that someone downloads on their phone, tablet, or other mobile device. Conventional electronic documents are also covered. These are documents published in PDF, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and similar formats, such as Google Suite documents.
WebAIM's Title II Roadmap
If your organization qualifies as a covered entity, you must plan how to comply by the deadline and sustain that accessibility moving forward. This roadmap helps entities identify and prioritize compliance activities. The three tiers provide a loose structure for addressing the most important and time-intensive activities first. Some activities must be done simultaneously, and you should adapt the roadmap activities to your current work in accessibility and available resources.
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Tier One
Secure commitment and action from leadership
Establish at least one executive sponsor to help facilitate the tasks, projects, and investments required to meet the conformance deadline. The explicit requirements detailed in the regulations will require an organizational culture shift for many entities. This culture change comes from the top down.
Different leadership roles are motivated by different things. Tailor messaging to leadership so that it will resonate with the leadership team, whether large or small. Align messaging to the entity's mission, vision, and values.
Create an inventory of all technology products
Develop a comprehensive record of all technology provided, including websites, platforms, tools, digital documents, apps, social media, and target users. For each product, identify the following:
- Which products are from a third party, and which are created in-house.
- The department or unit where the product is used.
- The product's primary owner, creator, or maintainer. This activity helps identify positions that need immediate support and will be involved in an entity's ongoing accessibility program.
Start with third-party products and collect any contracts or service agreements. These documents must include language that clearly states that accessibility is a requirement, specifically WCAG 2.1 AA, at a minimum. If they don't, work with vendor partners to add accessibility language and communicate expectations for meeting the conformance deadline
Message about accessibility internally
It is critical for entities to plan how they will communicate the impact of the regulations, who will be involved in helping to meet them and define projects and timelines. Because of the variability in department responsibilities, staff may need explicit direction on their roles to meet the requirements. For example, coming into compliance with the ADA may naturally motivate legal and risk management action. Without explicit direction, it may not motivate human resources to improve accessibility in the training materials they create.
Review each department and unit to determine who has a responsibility to help comply with the new regulations. Adjust messaging to align with each role or group of roles.
Create a steering committee
It takes input from across an organization to fully address digital accessibility. A group of key influencers and interested parties that serve as a steering committee is vital to creating a sustainable accessibility program.
This group may include people in formal leadership roles and people who know the organization but are not in formal leadership. Senior leadership is vital in creating and maintaining a successful accessibility program.
Provide a way for people to report barriers
Demonstrate a commitment to addressing accessibility barriers by providing an accessible online form or dedicated email address for people to use to report barriers they encounter. Monitor this to learn what stops or slows people with disabilities when interacting with your website.
Use this as a data point to help track progress over time.
Tier Two
Evaluate websites and products for accessibility
Many entities start this step without sufficient preparation. It is essential to consider just how any evaluation data will be used. If an entity is just beginning its accessibility program, then evaluation data may not be helpful. Ensure your entity is ready to engage and act on evaluation data by making fixes directly or by engaging third-party vendors to address accessibility barriers. Be sure to consider who needs to act on any evaluation data to set realistic expectations.
When an entity doesn't have in-house expertise, enlist the help of a third party like WebAIM to help plan and execute your evaluations.
Draft and adopt a digital accessibility policy
Policies are often necessary to help an entity define its goals and specific responsibilities and to set the tone for a digital accessibility program. Creating a policy is a common mandate in settlement agreements with the Department of Justice and the Department of Education. Policies typically document the adopted accessibility standard, responsible parties, and commitment to accessibility.
Create a task force with expertise in policy, legal, technology, and accessibility to draft the policy and use input from the stakeholder steering committee.
Initiate ongoing role-based professional development and supports
Accessibility is rarely taught in educational settings, and many organizations overlook accessibility in professional development. This creates a unique need for entities to establish their own professional development programs to support employees at all levels. Successful efforts will examine job roles and ensure that professional development content is targeted and specific.
Create an accessibility role matrix to determine the accessibility skills that people across your organization need. A human resources trainer who uses PowerPoint to make training slides will need a different skill set than a web developer who builds custom web applications.
Include accessibility in purchase and use decisions
Many entities will purchase or use new products between now and the conformance deadlines. Instead of adding more inaccessible third-party products to the inventory, proactively place accessibility language into documentation used during formal and informal procurement processes. Requests for proposals, scopes of work, documented functional requirements, purchasing contracts, and agreements must call out accessibility. Vet candidate products before making a purchase or use decision-making and assign a meaningful weight to accessibility when scoring vendor products.
Stay up to date and use the most recent version of third-party products. Vendors aren't likely to improve accessibility in previous versions.
Secure expertise
Entities need digital accessibility experts to identify, research, and guide remediation. An accessibility expert can also help during procurement, design, development, and implementation of digital products. At the policy level, this role is instrumental in interpreting the ADA, including the bigger picture of Title II outside of the new rule. Initially, this expertise may come from a trusted third party. Over time, entities may find that this role needs to exist internally.
Internal digital accessibility roles can ask too much of one individual. A single accessibility coordinator or specialist may not be enough in your entity. Identify where more specialized expertise is required and plan accordingly.
Tier Three
Draft and maintain an organizational implementation plan
A comprehensive implementation plan will define tasks and projects needed to conform with the new regulations. A plan will also assign timelines and more specific responsibilities for the tasks and projects than is in a digital accessibility policy. The implementation plan puts the policy into action.
Although the plan will include remediating current accessibility barriers, look for opportunities to improve accessibility without focusing only on remediation. If a product is nearing the end of its life in the coming months, focus on replacing it with something that conforms to WCAG 2.1 AA.
Identify needed investments and budgets
Initiating and sustaining an accessibility program requires resources and budget. Entities often rely on outside providers for training, evaluation, and consultation. Enterprise accessibility evaluation tools can help monitor accessibility on a large scale over time. For most medium to large entities, it is necessary to hire at least one person into a leadership role dedicated to accessibility.
Self-assessment often helps demonstrate where and when investments must be made.
Review job descriptions for every role that has an impact on accessibility
In your organization, you will find that many, if not most, roles are responsible for accessibility in practice. The accessibility role matrix you create to determine specific role-based training needs can help inform this by documenting the skills needed in various roles. Add the skills that you identify into job descriptions for the relevant roles.
Including relevant accessibility skills as requirements or preferences for roles contributing to an entity's digital offerings can be an excellent way to ensure successful professional development efforts. When a skill is in a job description, it is more likely to be developed and assessed.
Get feedback on progress
Internal self-assessment and technical accessibility evaluation are keys to monitoring progress. In the end, what is important is how people's experiences change. Ask for feedback from the people who participate in your services, programs, and activities to get insight into how your efforts have impacted the people your entity serves.
Repeat this over time and offer people more than one way to provide feedback. Online surveys, listening sessions, and the occasional website pop-up are just three possibilities.