Accessibility Remediation

What this covers

State and local governments must make their digital services accessible to people with disabilities. Federal rules under the Americans with Disabilities Act set WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard for web content and mobile applications, with compliance dates depending on population. HQT audits and remediates websites, applications, and documents.

Typical activities

• Automated and manual audits against WCAG 2.1 AA, including screen reader testing
• Prioritized remediation plans
• Code and content fixes for websites and applications
• Document remediation for PDFs and forms
• Accessibility statements and feedback processes
• Training for content authors and developers

What you receive

Audit reports, remediated code and content, conformance documentation, and a process for keeping new content accessible.

Why it matters

Accessibility is a legal requirement and a service obligation. It also improves usability for everyone, including staff using older devices and residents on mobile connections.

Signals that this work is overdue

A complaint is the late signal. Earlier ones are usually visible inside the agency:

• Your ADA coordinator has received a complaint about a web page, an online form, or a document, or has no published route for receiving one.
• You are replacing a content management system, launching an online service, or renewing a portal contract, and conformance language is not in the scope.
• Residents complete permit, licensing, or payment transactions by downloading a form, printing it, and mailing it back.
• No one can produce a current Accessibility Conformance Report for the platforms that deliver your public-facing services.
• Agendas, minutes, and budget documents are posted as scanned images rather than tagged files.
• Staff across departments publish content directly with no guidance on headings, alternative text, and link text.

Compliance dates under the Title II web rule depend on the size of the public entity. Confirm which date applies to yours and plan backward from it. Remediation capacity, not the difficulty of any single fix, usually sets the schedule.

What separates remediation from a report

Remediation changes what repeats. A finding should name the WCAG success criterion, the steps to reproduce it, and the template or component at fault, so that one correction to a page header, a date picker, or a form error pattern clears that defect everywhere it appears. Fixes belong in the code base and the design system rather than in individual pages.

Warning signs:

• An overlay or widget presented as conformance. It runs on top of the existing code without changing it.
• A report that is an exported automated scan. Automated tools cannot judge criteria that turn on meaning, such as whether alternative text is useful.
• A conformance claim stated as a score or percentage. WCAG conformance is evaluated criterion by criterion for a defined scope, not as a grade.
• ARIA attributes layered onto non-semantic markup, which often makes the experience worse than plain HTML.
• Documents run through an automatic tagging tool with no review of reading order and table structure.
• Page-level corrections with no change to templates or the publishing workflow. They regress as soon as new content is posted.

What to require in the solicitation

Vague accessibility clauses are hard to enforce at acceptance. Be specific:

• Name the standard and version, including whether you require WCAG 2.1 Level AA as adopted for Title II entities or the later criteria added in WCAG 2.2.
• Define scope by service and task flow rather than by page count, and list the sites, applications, mobile apps, and document repositories included.
• Require the test method: automated scanning plus manual keyboard testing and screen reader testing, with the assistive technology and browser combinations named.
• For documents, state the target, such as tagged PDF meeting the PDF/UA standard, and whether editable source files come back to you.
• Make acceptance depend on re-testing, and reserve the right to test with your own staff or a third party.
• Set a remedy period for defects found after acceptance and say who bears the cost.
• Exclude reliance on overlays as a means of conformance.
• State who remediates inaccessible third-party components the vendor chooses to integrate.

Checking that the fixes hold

Pick a small number of measures and repeat them on a schedule:

• Re-run the same resident task flows with a keyboard and with a screen reader, and record whether the task can be completed rather than tracking scan scores.
• Track open defects by success criterion and by the severity of the barrier each one creates.
• Track reports arriving through your accessibility feedback channel and the time taken to resolve them. A channel that receives nothing is often one nobody can find.
• Confirm that new pages and documents are checked before they go live, since new content is a common source of regression.
• Re-audit after any platform upgrade, redesign, or migration, and on a set interval in between.

Working with HQT on this

HQT scopes this kind of work as a fixed-price or time-and-materials engagement with a written statement of work, named staff, and a defined acceptance process. We are candid about what we can take on and prefer a well-run project to an oversized one. Contact us to discuss a requirement, a draft scope, or an upcoming solicitation.

Frequently asked questions