We’re approaching the one-year anniversary of a landmark ruling on accessibility by the U.S. Department of Justice. This ruling started the clock for public schools (K-12 and colleges and universities) to ensure their digital content is accessible to all users.
For public schools, the impact is clear. Based on the size of your institution, you have either 2 or 3 years to comply. For any companies that serve this age group, it means the topic of accessibility is going to be a higher priority in the next 2 to 3 years.
The big change here is that successful adherence to the ruling is based on following the rules (success criteria) established by the WCAG AA standards.
The WCAG (Web Consortium Accessibility Guidelines) has long been the authoritative document setting accessibility guidelines in the digital space. The guidelines are managed and published by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
Enough with the acronyms. In the fight for an accessible internet, this is good news. It means that previously ambiguous rules now have a lot more clarity. Follow the WCAG AA rules and you’re in compliance.
Some of the rules are straightforward—an easy yes or no. Others are still open to interpretation. But it’s a huge step forward in helping people understand what is needed to be considered accessible.
Getting good grades in accessibility benefits everyone
Regardless of the industry, we have long counseled clients to follow WCAG AA rules for websites and apps.
It’s not just a mandate from the legal department, it’s the right thing to do, and it helps the discoverability of your website.
Following the AA success criteria in the WCAG means that your site is going to perform better in search.
Simply put, an accessible site:
- Makes content available to more people, including students, customers and employees with disabilities
- Helps websites perform better in the competitive K-12 search space
- Keeps your digital content in good legal standing
You can use the growing momentum being produced from this ruling (and the ticking adherence clock) to slingshot accessibility to the front of your company’s “to-do” list. Lots of work will be done in the next 2 to 3 years to increase accessibility across the digital landscape. This is a perfect time to tackle accessibility for your digital properties.
Go from checking the box to changing your company’s culture
Making your site or app accessible is not a one-time exercise. It’s more of a culture change. Yes, there are immediate things you can do to scan a website and repair items that are out of compliance, but that’s just the start. Unless your website never changes, you need to cultivate an accessible mindset.
Your website is a living entity that changes on a weekly, daily or even hourly cadence. Each change introduces the possibility of accessibility issues. Any team member authoring content or making any changes to your website, should know the basics of accessibility. Let’s go with a school analogy. Not everyone in a classroom needs to be a teacher, but everyone needs to know the rules of using the whiteboard. Your job is to help them think about accessibility as a creative catalyst that can set your brand apart.
Understanding the basics of accessibility and taking the first steps to make your digital properties accessible is straightforward and, dare I say, easy. The hardest part is just getting started. My previous article that covers that exact hurdle.
The pursuit of full compliance
If you do a search on “how to make my website accessible” you are going to find a lot of magic remedies. These are tools, plugins or services that offer a quick, “set it and forget it” solution for accessibility. Spoiler alert: they may improve some parts of your site’s accessibility, but they do not guarantee to make your site fully accessible. Read the fine print from these companies. They all have a statement that absolves them from accountability for full compliance.
Full compliance is actually very hard to achieve. You may have it for a day or so, but the next set of content updates could knock you back into the “needs improvement” status. And that’s ok. Remember, it’s a culture change. Make a company plan for continued accessibility improvements. Determine how often you will check your site for accessibility. Set a budget for incremental improvements. Source some good training materials to give everyone a baseline understanding of how to be accessible in the digital space.
If you have been thinking about tackling accessibility on your website or app, the compliance mandate may be the perfect time. It’s going to be part of the national conversation as schools make moves to comply with the Department of Justice ruling. Use this moment as a catalyst to start your accessibility culture change in your institution or organization.
Need help getting started? Reach out. We can help.
