Ensure ADA Title II Compliance with These 5 Essential Actions

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), established on July 26, 1990, is a civil rights law designed to protect people with disabilities from discrimination based on their disability and ensure equal access to all areas of public life.

The ADA was introduced at a time when the web was in its infancy, and there has been ongoing efforts to understand and establish the applicability of the ADA to the digital world.

This article provides some background on how ADA compliance requirements for websites and other digital products have evolved and how organizations can meet these requirements when building and maintaining digital assets.

The 5 Titles of the ADA

The ADA consists of five Titles, each addressing a specific aspect of disability in public life. These include:

• Title I addresses employment.
• Title II addresses the provision of public services provided by state and local government, including public transit.
• Title III addresses public accommodations and services provided by businesses and nonprofit organizations open to the public.
• Title IV addresses certain telecommunications.
• Title V provides requirements for how the ADA is implemented.

What Is Title II of the ADA and Why Is It Important?

ADA Title II requires state and local governments to provide people with disabilities equal access to all services, programs, and activities. This includes services, programs, and activities that are funded by state and local governments.

Recent regulations and case law have underscored the importance of digital accessibility, making it a critical focus area for compliance and emphasizing the need to be proactive in your compliance efforts.

New ADA Title II Regulations for Digital Accessibility

In September 2010, the Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation issued updated ADA Standards for Accessible Design, which provide requirements for ensuring buildings and facilities are accessible to people with disabilities. The 2010 Accessible Design Standards included requirements for certain types of kiosks but did not address digital resources such as websites and mobile apps.

Fourteen years later, on April 8, 2024, the U.S. Attorney General signed a final rule providing requirements for digital accessibility under Title II of the ADA. Now, for the first time since the ADA was enacted in 1990, Title II regulations include technical requirements for applying the ADA to web content and mobile apps.

The rule’s official name is “Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability; Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities.” The official rule’s name is a mouthful, so for your sake, we’ll stick to the ADA Title II Web and Mobile App Accessibility Final Rule.

ADA Title II Requirements for Web Content and Mobile App Accessibility

The ADA Title II Web and Mobile App Accessibility Final Rule is a significant development in providing much-needed clarity on digital accessibility requirements.

The rule mandates that organizations covered under Title II, including state and local governments, public schools, and universities, ensure all web content and mobile apps conform to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA.

The rule also includes several exceptions where the technical requirements do not apply, including:

• Archived web content.
• Pre-existing digital documents.
• Pre-existing social media posts.
• Password-protected personal documents.
• Content posted voluntarily by third parties (e.g., comments on a web page). This exception does not apply to content or functionality provided by a third party that was commissioned or contracted by a covered organization.

ADA Title II Compliance Deadlines

Organizations must adhere to the following compliance deadlines to ensure their digital content meets ADA Title II accessibility standards:

• For larger organizations (50,000 people or more), the deadline for compliance is April 24, 2026.
• For smaller organizations (under 50,000 people), the deadline is April 24, 2027.

For more information, refer to TPGi’s summary of the Title II Regulations for Web and Mobile Accessibility. We also advise that you become familiar with the regulations themselves and how they apply to your organization.

Other Laws and Regulations to Consider

The ADA is not the only U.S. law addressing disability discrimination in the digital world. For example, federal organizations have responsibilities for digital accessibility under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Recent updates to regulations in the healthcare sector for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Affordable Care Act Section 1557 provide accessibility requirements for digital resources used to provide healthcare programs and services.

U.S. companies that operate internationally must also consider global laws like the European Accessibility Act (EAA), which has a conformance deadline of June 28, 2025.

With so many changes to track in legislation and regulations, it can be challenging for businesses to determine their digital accessibility requirements and how best to take steps to improve and maintain accessibility over time.

5 Actions to Take to Comply with ADA Title II Web Accessibility Standards

Given the accelerating rate of ADA lawsuits, it is more important than ever to conduct regular accessibility reviews of digital properties. Federal lawsuits under the ADA have increased by over 300% from a decade ago, highlighting the need for vigilance and proactive compliance.

To comply with ADA Title II web accessibility regulations, organizations must proactively assess and enhance the accessibility of their digital platforms. Here are five essential actions to guide organizations in building capacity to achieve and sustain compliance.

1. Perform Regular Accessibility Scans with Automated Monitoring

One of the first steps you should take is to learn more about the accessibility of your website, application, or digital products. Conducting an accessibility audit provides an in-depth overview of your website’s accessibility and guidance on what needs to be fixed to make it ADA compliant.

Regular accessibility reviews of websites and mobile apps are essential to identify and address accessibility issues that may have arisen since prior remediation efforts. This is one reason why you’ll want to leverage the power of automation when embarking on your accessibility journey.

With automated accessibility testing, you can quickly run domain accessibility tests, as well as monitor specific user journeys most critical to your customers to continuously detect accessibility barriers across all your digital assets.

Automated Accessibility Testing with ARC

Use ARC Monitoring for a quick, automated assessment of accessibility barriers that may exist on your website(s). These scans allow you to continuously monitor your site, uncovering any new accessibility issues each month to ensure your team takes immediate action.

Be aware though that automated testing tools can only test against a proportion of possible barrier types, so you shouldn’t rely only on automated tools for your accessibility strategy.

2. Manual Audits Offer Expert Guidance for Comprehensive Accessibility Review

Manual accessibility audits provide a more comprehensive accessibility review of your digital products, testing for accessibility issues that can’t be identified through automated means.

For instance, testing for screen reader usability can be challenging without expertise in how screen readers function. Our screen reader testing tool, JAWS Inspect, simplifies this process by providing developers and QA testers with a clear understanding of the JAWS screen reader user experience, offering valuable insights into your manual audit data.

Audit reports provide invaluable insights into your digital accessibility status, uncovering critical data to help you advance toward compliance with ADA Title II requirements. However, one issue with audit reports is that the detail provided t can often overwhelm teams, leading to delays in remediation efforts. So, audit results should include information that allows product teams to prioritize what to address first and what to leave until later.

When audits are only conducted late in the product development process, remediation efforts often translate into additional work for developers already stretched thin with impending deadlines.

Accessibility tasks may be deprioritized in favor of more urgent business needs, leaving organizations vulnerable to legal risks. The perceived time and cost associated with rebuilding components can deter progress in accessibility. This is why you may want to partner with accessibility consultants that can support your team with the resources and guidance they need to remain agile.

Full-Service Accessibility Support with TPGi as a Service (TaaS)

Unlock the full power of TPGi to achieve your accessibility goals with hassle-free access to all the resources, solutions, and expertise for managing audits, developing a remediation strategy, and support with VPATs, UX design reviews, and the creation of conformance statements. Learn more about partnering with TPGi.

Conduct Usability Testing of Critical User Journeys

After remediating the issues you’ve identified through automated and manual testing, you need to know if your efforts paid off, and if people with disabilities can actually use your website or app. This is why you’ll want to have people with disabilities participate in usability tests to verify you’ve created accessible and usable experiences for all your customers.

One way to quickly gather feedback is with Assistive Technology (AT) User Flow testing. This testing solution provides first-hand perspectives from everyday AT users on the usability of your digital product(s).

AT User Flow Testing can verify whether your remediation work after an audit was successful. It can also be integrated into sprint cycles, identifying where barriers may exist, helping teams prioritize remediation efforts.

Conducting usability tests with people with disabilities can help verify your products are usable before you launch or publish a digital resource. As your accessibility program matures, you should consider conducting usability testing earlier in the product development lifecycle to ensure you identify usability issues early and increase your ROI.

Early and frequent testing can help identify and address potential issues before they become major barriers that are difficult and expensive to fix.

Build and Maintain Accessible User Journeys with ARC

ARC user flows give product and web accessibility teams the ability to concentrate on critical areas of their users’ journeys to remediate accessibility findings quickly. ARC User Flows is just one element of an entire accessibility ecosystem: the ARC Platform, learn more.

4. Training and Development: Build You Team’s Accessibility Knowledge and Skills

As organizations build and maintain the accessibility of their digital resources, it’s important that everyone who works with these resources has the knowledge and skills they need to maintain web conformance. Relying on one or two team accessibility specialists is a risky strategy and is unlikely to be scalable or sustainable.

Role-based accessibility training is a vital component of any accessibility strategy. Ensure that your team is well-versed in the core concepts around digital accessibility and disability inclusion and are familiar with role-based best practices.

One approach is to provide your team with a repository of rich, role-based content for on-demand education, like the ARC Tutor courses found in the ARC Knowledge Center. Additionally, you provide your team with instructor-led training sessions to allow your team to speak with a trusted expert and get answers to their questions immediately.

As technologies and accessibility requirements evolve and as new people join your team, continuous education is essential. Changes in accessibility best practices and updates in laws and regulations underscore the importance of keeping your team briefed on the fundamentals of digital accessibility, best practices, and legal obligations.

Regularly update training materials and offer refresher courses to keep accessibility top of mind for your team. This way you’re fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement within your organization.

5. Streamline the Management of Your Accessibility Program

Effective accessibility program management ensures that your efforts are organized and aligned with your overall business objectives. To do that, you must manage your entire accessibility program across all domains, including data tracking, team coordination, and progress monitoring from one central location.

It’s also important to be able to quickly provide evidence of progress towards improved accessibility. An Excel file is just not going to cut it, especially if you have multiple digital products to manage.

That’s why you’ll need a solution that can maintain detailed records of your accessibility efforts and track improvements over time. This centralized approach makes storing, finding, and sharing critical information fast and easy, ensuring your team can efficiently manage accessibility projects and track progress over time.

TPGi’s Accessibility Management Platform, One Powerful Dashboard

The ARC Platform enables you to streamline the management of your accessibility efforts across all your digital assets and monitor your progress through a single dashboard. Learn more about ARC Dashboard.

BONUS: Create and Maintain a VPAT Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR)

A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) is a valuable tool for organizations to produce Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACRs) of digital products — using a standard format that can be shared with customers and users.

VPAT ACRs are used by U.S. federal and state governments, and other entities, to assess how well digital content conforms to WCAG guidelines and Section 508 requirements.

Creating an accurate VPAT can be complicated and time-consuming, especially for organizations without substantial accessibility experience. And for reliability, it’s often best to commission a third party to produce a VPAT ACR for your product rather than do it yourself.

Ensure Your VPAT Is Done Correctly with TPGi

By leveraging TPGi’s expertise, your organization can create a VPAT that not only meets compliance requirements but also enhances the accessibility of your digital content. Contact TPGi today to learn more about how we can assist with your VPAT needs.

Long-Term ADA Title II Compliance with TPGi

Ensuring ADA Title II compliance is not just your goal but a step towards ensuring your digital products can be successfully used by people with disabilities. Making use of automated scanning, conducting regular audits, implementing training programs, streamlining program management, conducting usability testing, and publishing VPATs are core steps organizations can take to make progress in their accessibility efforts.

By utilizing tools like the ARC platform, you can ensure that your digital content is compliant with the latest regulations and accessible to everyone.

Have questions about ADA Title II? Speak with an accessibility expert today