Your website is now covered by the ADA.
The Department of Justice's Title II rule requires state and local government websites to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. I audit public-sector sites against that standard and hand you a prioritized plan to fix what's broken — or fix it for you.
Two dates that apply to you
In April 2024 the DOJ published a final rule under ADA Title II setting a technical standard — WCAG 2.1 Level AA — for the web content and mobile apps of state and local governments. Compliance dates depend on population.
Public entities serving 50,000 or more people
This deadline has passed.
Public entities serving fewer than 50,000, and all special district governments
Budget cycles for this are being set now.
This is a description of a published federal rule, not legal advice. How the rule applies to your specific entity — including any exceptions — is a question for your counsel.
An audit you can actually act on
Most accessibility reports are a list of several hundred defects with no order to them. That's not useful to someone who has to budget the work and explain it to a council.
Audit
I review a representative set of your pages — the homepage plus the pages residents actually use: contact, forms and applications, payments, search, meeting agendas. You get a report naming every issue found, with the WCAG criterion, the specific element, and how to fix it.
Prioritized plan
Findings are separated into template issues and page content. Template issues repeat on every page and each is a single fix that corrects all of them at once — that distinction is usually the difference between a job that looks enormous and one that is a few days' work. The report includes an hours estimate for both.
Remediation
Optional. I can make the fixes, or hand the plan to your existing web vendor — it's written to be actionable by whoever maintains your site. If your vendor does the work, the report is still yours to hold them to.
I build the scanner I audit with
Audits run on AccessKnight, accessibility software I designed and built — 33 automated WCAG 2.1 checks, multi-page site audits, and continuous monitoring. It isn't a reseller badge on someone else's tool, which means when you ask why something was flagged, you get an answer from the person who wrote the check.
Both accessknight.com and this site score 100 on that same scan. It is a fair question to ask any accessibility vendor, and a surprising number of them cannot answer it.
What public entities ask
What standard do you audit against?
WCAG 2.1 Level AA — the standard the U.S. Department of Justice's ADA Title II rule applies to state and local government websites. Level AAA findings are reported separately as advisory and are not counted against you, because AAA is not the required standard.
Is this an automated scan or a manual audit?
The audit is automated, and I say so plainly. Automated testing reliably catches roughly a third of accessibility barriers — the ones that are also the most common and the easiest to demonstrate in a complaint. A complete conformance assessment additionally requires manual keyboard and screen-reader testing, which I can quote separately. Anyone selling you an automated scan as a full conformance assessment is overselling it.
How many pages do you review?
A representative sample, typically ten pages, chosen to cover distinct page templates rather than ten variations of the same layout. The report states exactly which pages were reviewed and how they were selected. Larger or deeper reviews are quoted per site.
Can you tell us whether we're compliant?
No, and be cautious of anyone who says otherwise. I report what an automated scan found against WCAG 2.1 AA. Whether that creates or resolves a legal obligation for your entity is a question for your own counsel. I'm the measurement, not the verdict.
What does it cost, and how do we buy it?
Audits are fixed-fee and priced to sit under most entities' discretionary purchasing thresholds, so they typically don't require a competitive bid. Remediation is quoted from the hours in the audit. Tell me your procurement process early and I'll work within it.
Do you work with our existing web vendor?
Often, yes. Many sites are maintained by a platform vendor or an outside developer. The audit is written so they can act on it directly, and I'm happy to walk them through it.
Find out where your site stands
Send me your website address and I'll tell you what an automated WCAG 2.1 AA scan finds — at no charge and with no obligation. If it's in good shape, I'll say so.
alex@horizontalimpact.com