Website accessibility, defined as designing websites in a way that present no barriers to those with disabilities, is an important consideration for city governments, and is a requirement of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA.
Making sure that a website is accessible involves issues like providing keyboard-accessible navigation, a site design that works with screen reader programs, or simply making sure that website text is large enough and presented with enough contrast. Noncompliance with the ADA can lead to lawsuits.
Accessibility requirements under the ADA are nothing new for municipalities, but the exact requirements that apply will be changing in the coming years. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice published a final rule updating its regulations for how state and local governments should keep their web content and mobile app content compliant with Title II of the ADA, which applies to all services, programs and activities of state or local governments.
This final rule establishes that the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG, Version 2.1, Level AA, sets the technical standard for web and mobile content, which municipalities must meet in most cases.
These guidelines, available online, address a huge number of topics for web and mobile app content, ranging from providing text alternatives for content that is not text-based, text legibility, alternatives for audio, and website navigation assistance.
The final rule notes that some exceptions to the guidelines are allowable to help governments prioritize their most important content, like current or commonly used information, for accessibility. Exceptions include these:
- Archived web content that is outdated, not needed or repeated elsewhere — for example, water quality reports from years past.
- Preexisting, conventional electronic documents, such as old PDF files.
- Content posted by a third party, so long as the third party is not posting something on behalf of the government, such as the case of a contractor hired to design or manage a website.
- Individualized documents that are password-protected, like a water or tax bill.
- Preexisting social media posts.
The date of required compliance with the rule depends on the city’s or town’s population. For those with a population of 50,000 or more, the compliance date is April 24, 2026; and for those with a population of fewer than 50,000, the date is April 26, 2027.
The U.S. Department of Justice maintains a website for ADA issues online. It details the steps that governments should take to begin complying with the accessibility rule, ranging from determining who on staff should be working on compliance, staff training, content review, changes needed to make the content ADA-compliant, and policy development.