- [Anthony] Good morning, and good afternoon, everyone. My name's Anthony Priore. I'm the digital marketing manager at TPGi. We're gonna give everyone one minute, and we'll get started briefly. I still see some people trickling in, so we're just gonna give it one more minute and we'll start momentarily. Okay, thank you everyone for joining us today for our webinar, "Catching Up with ADA Title II Regulations for Web Content and Mobile App Accessibility" with TPGi's David Sloan, Chief accessibility Officer and User Experience Practice Manager. Before we get started, I just have a few housekeeping items I'd like to get to. So firstly, this session is being recorded and we will email everyone the recording after the event. Secondly, we have captions available, so feel free to turn those on and use them as needed. Next, we have a live Q&A later on the webinar, so please use the Q&A box, and we'll answer as many questions as we have time for at the end of the presentation. I want to just emphasize the Q&A box is easier for us to find and read the questions, so please keep that in mind. Sometimes if you send questions to chat, we can lose them or lose sight of them. So we'll monitor both, but it's easier for us if you could send them to the Q&A box. And then lastly, if anyone needs any accessibility support, training or usability testing, we will send out an email with a link to schedule a time to speak with one of our experts after the session. So with that, I'm gonna pass it off to David and let him get started. Take it away, David.

- Thanks so much, Anthony, and thank you everybody for attending this session today. So we're gonna explore the new ADA Title II regulations on web content and mobile accessibility. I'll be referring to the rule as I go through the presentation because the full title of the of the new regulations is quite a mouthful. I'm gonna explore the background to how the new rule came into being. I'll talk about who and what the rule applies to. I'll cover the requirements of the rule on covered organizations. And a particular focus of this session will be exploring the rule's connection with usability efforts, given that this week is World Usability Day. And we'll finish up by thinking about ways in which organizations can enhance processes and practices to use the rule to advance usability for everyone, including people with disabilities. But I'm gonna start with a prologue. Firstly, this is a webinar about an extension to existing legislation in the US. This webinar does not offer legal advice. I strongly recommend that you engage with legal counsel for any formal advice on meeting legal obligations. We are focusing more on the technical and usability focus of the regulations. And I also need to acknowledge that last week's election result in the United States has created some uncertainty over the direction of disability rights legislation and regulation. And this webinar won't speculate on what might happen under the new administration, but focuses on the current publish rule, the rule that is in existence already. And regardless of what may or may not happen in the future, right now, people with disabilities need accessible and usable digital resources, and the rule can help us move towards that goal. Today's presentation is coinciding with World Usability Day, which is on November 14th on Thursday. World Usability Day 2024's theme is designing for a better world. So how can accessibility standards and regulations, such as the ADA Title II rule that we're going to explore help us with that goal in mind? How do we help ensure better usability for everybody? So let's move on with a brief history that may help explain why the rule was introduced and introduced in the way it has been. Looking back over some significant events over the last 35 years or so, in 1989, the worldwide web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, and it became something over time that has become all pervasive in most of our lives. One year after that, in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush. And that coincidence has led to some challenges over the years in terms of the applicability of the ADA to digital world, and in particular the web, which is going to be something that we'll come back to shortly. Nine years after the passing of the ADA into law, we saw in 1999 that version one of the W3C Web Content accessibility Guidelines published. And that was a landmark event where it was recognized that people who were involved in creating digital resources made available online needed to be thinking about accessibility for people with disabilities. In 2007, eight years after version one of WCAG was published, the first iPhone was released for sale by Apple. And this was the start of a new era where access to web content and mobile apps was something that was enabled through mobile means, rather than relying on desktop computers to access websites, that fundamentally changed how we approached web design and the emergence of native mobile apps as well to provide information, functionality services and all the things that apps allow us to do now. Three years after that, in 2010, a couple of things happened. The ADA accessibility Standards for Title II and Title III were adopted by the Department of Justice covering physical environments, including ATMs and also on fare machines. And this document, official standards under the ADA, included some requirements on communication elements, in other words, user interfaces for ATMs and fare machines. So here was something that was connected to the ADA that had some connection with digital user interfaces, but the requirements were very limited in terms of what you were supposed to do and also very limited in their applicability, only to very specific types of kiosks and self-service transaction machines. In the same year, in 2010, an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, an ANPRM for digital accessibility for Title II and Title III of the ADA was published. And shortly after that ANPRM was separated into two rules. So this was effectively an advanced intention by the Department of Justice that the rulemaking process to create more specific requirements under the ADA for digital accessibility was something that they intended to advance. However, after seven years of not a lot of action, all existing ANPRMs and digital accessibility were withdrawn by the Department of Justice. And all this time we're seeing increased numbers of lawsuits around the applicability of the ADA to the digital world. Most of them were addressed are addressing ADA Title III rather than Title II, so Title III being places of public accommodation. But that said, there was a lot of, or an increasing amount of court activity trying to figure out if and how the ADA applied to the digital world. So in July, 2022, the Department of Justice announced the intent to create a rule for digital accessibility for Title II only of the ADA. And that led in one year later in July, 2023 to a notice of proposed rulemaking being published and made available for public comment. So this was effectively a draft of the rule that was made available with the intention of receiving feedback from members of the public on the content of the rule, the extent, all of the different aspects of the rule that needed some form of public debate before a final rule would be published. And that open comment phase understandably received a significant amount of feedback. And that was incorporated into the final rule, which was published in April, 2024, officially titled Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability, Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities. So then in June, 2024, six months ago, or five months ago, the final rule appeared in the Federal Register and became effective as of June 24th, 2024. So it was a long time before we got to a point where the ADA had explicit language in it to address the applicability of the ADA's requirements to the digital world, but we now have that in place, even if it only addresses organizations covered under Title II of the ADA state and local governments. So let's now dive into the intent of the rule. Well, the original text of Title II of the ADA says, "Subject to the provisions of this subchapter, no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reasons of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity." So that's a kind of broad overarching intent of the rule in terms of its protections for people with disabilities. This rule added language to the ADA Title II regulation to provide some clarity to covered organizations on how they can meet that responsibility when providing websites and mobile apps. Now, the Department of Justice has always maintained that the ADA Title II applies to services and programs provided through websites and mobile apps. This rule communicated that position through an extension to the actual text of the legislation itself. And technically the rule added a new subpart to Title II ADA regulation. So the rule's intention is not to reduce protection for people with disabilities when other applicable laws or regulations may provide a higher level of protection. Those would still apply. But it was more to provide clarity to help covered organizations understand what they need to do to meet their obligations when considering programs and services provided online. So what does the rule apply to? Well, Title II addresses programs and services provided by state and local government organizations in the United States, including, for example, public education services, public transport, voting, healthcare, social services, courts, access to emergency services, many other programs and services that help citizens in everyday life, and all of which we can agree need to be accessible to people with disabilities. But the rule also has wider influence, even though it doesn't apply to ADA Title III, which addresses organizations that provide public accommodations. It will directly influence any organization that supplies web content or mobile apps to state and local governments, even if the rule does not apply to those organizations that are contractors and vendors to state and local government organizations, those contractors and vendors will want to support those customers in state and local governments in terms of helping them meet their obligations. So by extensions, it would make business sense for organizations that do business with state and local governments to ensure the accessibility of their digital products. The rule requirements have also influenced digital accessibility requirements, of two other rules published this year by the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS. One rule relates to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act's applicability to healthcare services. And this rule is titled Discrimination and the Basis of Disability in HHS Programs or Activities. And this rule specifies the same technical accessibility standards and exceptions as the ADA Title II rule that we're going to explore shortly in this webinar. And the other rule that HHS published was Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities, providing additional requirements to Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. And the Section 1557 rule references the Section 504 rule, which in turn is harmonized with the ADA Title II rule. So in both cases it's indicative of a trend towards harmonization of digital accessibility requirements in the public sector, at least, and potentially also the private sector. And this is good news for providers of digital content, digital technologies because I think a standard set of accessibility requirements allows those providers to serve different aspects of public society. So what technologies are covered by the rule? Well, firstly, web content, HTML webpages including embedded audio and video, digital documents including Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, PDF documents that are made available through the web, and then also mobile apps, native mobile apps providing programs and services. There are some exceptions which we'll explore shortly. What's the technical accessibility requirement? Well, the rule says that covered web content and mobile apps must meet the web content accessibility guidelines, WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Now those of you working in accessibility will likely be aware that this is one version older than the latest version of WCAG. Version 2.2 of WCAG was published in October last year. So already one might argue that the ADA rule is one version out of date. That said, there's nothing in the rule to stop organizations adopting WCAG 2.2 as a standard. Absolutely, it's okay to aim higher than the requirements in the rule. And the rule also provides a higher level of protection than that required for federal entities in the United States, which are recovered by the revised section 508 ICT standards, which reference WCAG 2.0. So while you may argue it's not perfect, it's certainly not a bad thing to have a reference to a relatively recent version of WCAG. And in the explanation to the feedback received on the proposed rule, the Department of Justice explained that they couldn't issue a rule that doesn't directly reference a specific standard. They couldn't future proof the rule by saying that it refers the latest version of, for example, WCAG. It had to refer to a specific version, which will mean at some point, there will need likely need to be a revision process if and when a new version of WCAG is published. But for now, version 2.1 Level AA is a pretty decent baseline to require organizations right now to try to meet. So deadlines for compliance, there are two different deadlines specified in the rule, and they are based on the size of the covered organization. And the logic here is really based on the perceived capacity of a covered organization to meet the rule's requirements based on amount of staff and the amount of digital content that they'll need to make sure meets the rule's requirements. So April 24th, 2026 for state and local government organizations with populations of 50,000 people or more, and April 24th, 2027 for organizations of populations of less than 50,000 people. Now I mentioned before, there are some exceptions specified in the rule, and the presence of exceptions from the rule is really intended to help covered organizations prioritize efforts on the highest impact areas. So while the existence of exceptions could be seen as a weakening of the rule in that it's not explicitly saying that certain things must be made to meet the technical requirements, the logic behind the DOJ's intent, decision to include exceptions is one of pragmatism and really one to help organizations prioritize efforts on fixing things with the highest impact. And the exceptions are specific to the rule, not to the ADA more generally. So covered organizations will still need to be ready to address accessibility issues that exist in content that falls under a description of the exception and in order to ensure they meet the ADA requirements of effective communication and provision of reasonable accommodations to somebody with a disability who wants to access that content that falls under the definition of exception. So, you know, it's important to note those exceptions are specific to the rule, not to the broader ADA. And the exceptions apply to certain types of content based on factors such as of that content, the format of that content, the purpose, and where it came from. And the rule has very specific definitions of content that may qualify as being an exception. And if a piece of content doesn't meet every part of that definition, then the exception doesn't apply. So the Department of Justice was very specific in defining what was and what was not considered an exception. So the types of exceptions in summary are, firstly, archived web content, secondly, preexisting conventional electronic documents. And by that they mean things like Microsoft Word, PDF, PowerPoint, Excel spreadsheets. Thirdly, content posted by a third party that is not engaged by a covered organization to provide content. So this is third-party content that might be, for example, a comment posted by a member of the public on a page provided by a covered organization where the comment was not directly requested by the covered entity under a contract or other agreement. It was just voluntarily provided. Fourthly, individualized password-protected content. And the fifth exception is preexisting social media content posted by a covered organization. And without going to into too much details of what exactly is the definition of each of these exception, I will pull out a couple of general definitions. Archive, paraphrasing the rule, is content that is kept in a clearly recognizable archive area. It's kept only for reference, research or recordkeeping. So it's not the case that any content that an organization decides that it doesn't want to make accessible, it can label it as archive. This is a clear definition for what is meant by archive content. And preexisting is another word that's used in the exceptions, and that's defined as anything that was created before the date, the state or local government must comply with the rule and has not changed since that date. Now the original notice of proposed rulemaking included a number of other exceptions, including a significant proportion of content provided for educational purposes. But based on the public comments received in response to the NPRM, educational content was removed from the list of exceptions in the final rule. And that was a really important demonstration of how public feedback to a draft can lead to that draft significantly changing, in particular the recognition of the importance of being proactive in providing accessible educational resources as opposed to reacting only, you know, when told to make it accessible. There are some other potential exceptions to the rule where not meeting the technical accessibility requirements would firstly cause an a covered organization undue burden and/or require fundamental alteration, and in my words, paraphrasing, if it would cost too much to change or if it would change the resource too much when trying to meet the technical accessibility requirements. And this addresses a long standing provision of the ADA where undue burden and fundamental alteration are sort of founding principles of situations where organizations may justify not taking exception to take effort to improve accessibility. But it requires detailed documentation to demonstrate that making a change would cause undue burden or create a fundamental alteration. And in the vast majority of situations for online digital resources, I think it's unlikely that it would be considered an undue burden or fundamental alteration to make those changes to meet accessibility requirements. The second potential exception would be a situation where not meeting technical accessibility requirements can be mitigated by providing a conforming alternative version instead of a single version of a digital resource that meets the technical requirement of WCAG 2.1 Level AA. And it's likely to be rare, but this may be an option for specific situations where programs or services are provided by a technology that can't be made fully accessible, providing those programs and services through another way that is accessible to people who can't access the original version may satisfy this particular exception situation. And the third case would be situation where not meeting technical accessibility requirements does not materially affect access to content, functionality or participation for people with disabilities. In other words, where not meeting the accessibility requirement has no practical impact on people with disabilities. And this is defined more specifically as a situation that where, regardless of the compliance level of WCAG, people with disabilities can still access the same information as people without disabilities, engage in the same interaction as people without disabilities, conduct the same transactions as people without disabilities and otherwise participate in or benefit from the same services, programs and activities as people without disabilities. So now we've talked about the rule's requirements and some of the exceptions. Let's explore how the rule supports usability efforts. So the rule provides a baseline set of accessibility requirements. And firstly, following technical accessibility standards helps improve usability for people with disabilities. Meeting technical accessibility standards doesn't guarantee that a digital product will be usable for its intended purpose by people with disabilities, but it gets you a long way along that road towards that ideal destination. And as I said before, while the rule might require WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance, that doesn't mean that you can't extend the technical requirements to include other accessibility requirements such as WCAG 2.2 or making content usable, additional guidance published by W3C'S web accessibility initiative for people with a range of cognitive and learning disabilities, much of which kind of goes beyond technical standards conformance to addressing usability and user experience challenges that particularly affect people with cognitive and learning disabilities. And then there are software accessibilities requirements in section 508 that may be helpful when designing and building mobile apps that aren't necessarily easy to design to meet every specific requirement of WCAG 2.1. So the rule is helping organizations building digital resources by providing a baseline set of accessibility requirements on which additional work can be done to enhance the user experience for everybody. And the rule also encourages a focus on user experience for people with disabilities, particularly through that exception that I mentioned a few slides back, allowing resources not to meet WCAG 2.1 AA in a minor way if there's no impact on people with disabilities. That puts a really strong focus on ensuring accessible user experience. How would you verify that a conformance issue that you found had no impact on people with disabilities? By evaluating the resource with people with disabilities. So including people with disabilities should be a priority, both in evaluating existing resources to ensure that they meet the requirements of the rule, and also in the design development and testing of new resources. Ultimately, if you can demonstrate that people with disabilities can use a resource for its intended purpose in the same way that people without disabilities can use it, then you can demonstrate that you are doing your best to meet the requirements of the rule. And ultimately, by presenting evidence that people with disabilities can access functionality and information, then you're a long way to ensuring that you're meeting the requirements, your obligations under the ADA there. So moving towards the end of this webinar, how can organizations enhance processes and practices to help them prepare and to meet the requirements of the rule? Well, firstly, we can look at policy. It's important for organizations to establish an organizational digital accessibility policy. This sets out in a high level a number of different things, the accessibility standard that web content and mobile apps should meet, and the rule gives us a clear reference on what that baseline standard should be, but it may be that an organization chooses to add additional standards into that baseline. A remediation approach, what approach is going to be taken to review and remediate existing digital resources? What will be the plan for new content, separate to a remediation approach, is ensuring that some things in place to ensure that new resources are born accessible, that they're built with accessibility in mind right from the word go. The policy should consider how accessibility of resources provided by third parties will addressed, even if the third party providing digital content for use by a covered organization, even if that third party is not subject to the requirements of ADA Title II, the state and local government organization is. So by managing risk associated with either procuring or using a third-party solution, then that helps an organization that needs to meet the requirements of the rule do so without undue effort when using third-party content. The policy should identify who's accountable and responsible for digital resource accessibility. Accountability means that somebody's ultimately, you know, has that obligation to oversee efforts and as a point of contact if a situation occurs where those efforts are not successful. Responsibility is something that ideally is distributed across everyone who's has an influence on building and maintaining websites and mobile apps in a covered organization. The policy can address how responsible staff will be supported in meeting their accessibility responsibilities, and we'll talk about that shortly. And then very importantly, how people with disabilities will be supported, including the organization's approach to establishing and maintaining a feedback loop for submitting reports of inaccessibility and responding to those reports so that any issues that are reported are fixed in a timely and effective fashion. Second thing is capacity building. Organizations need to look to providing accessibility training for staff, and that can take two strands, firstly, general accessibility training for everyone involved in the building and maintenance of digital content. And secondly, role-based and technology-specific accessibility training. It's important to make sure that people get the right training so that they understand what they need to do and aren't exposed to content that is relevant to other roles and potentially becomes overwhelming and can be counterproductive in terms of making people feel less able to meet their responsibilities or be more confused about what those responsibilities are. Providing tools for monitoring accessibility in existing resources and identifying issues to help people fix those issues. You know, whether those tools are web accessibility automated scanning tools, or encouraging people to make use of inbuilt checking tools that are provided in applications such as Microsoft Word, so that as people create digital documents, they're checking and fixing issues in a very sort of regular and sort of fine-grained way. Establishing processes and encouraging staff to follow those processes for accessibility testing, for web content, mobile apps and digital document. Having a shared set of test processes helps people understand what they need to do and have a consistency in terms of, you know, across-the-board testing of digital resources that are subject to the requirements of the rule. Having processes for including people with disabilities in evaluating digital resources. You know, this can sometimes be seen as an activity that is, "Well, we'd like to do this, but we have no idea where to go or what to do." So establishing a process and maybe partnering with organizations who can support that effort will help with capacity building and help build that essential activity into digital resource creation and maintenance. And in establishing processes for documenting and addressing accessibility issues directly supports the more organized management of dealing with fixing accessibility issues as they are discovered. Prioritizing those issues to ensure that the most significant or most important or the easiest to fix are addressed first. And those that are maybe more challenging to fix or maybe are present in a resource that is likely to be replaced soon, they can be less, you know, deprioritized in terms of fixing issues. And a third strand of building capacity is communication. Providing communication channels where accessibility issues or concerns can be reported and acted upon is a really important part of building an overall organizational accessibility program. And those communication channels could be established, for example, through an accessibility page on the covered organization's website. Maybe it's an online form or other contact details to invite feedback and to request assistance where issues may be encountered, a dedicated email address to report accessibility issues, and then a process in place for handling those issues. It's all very well opening communication channels, but it's essential to make sure that the information that's received through those communication channels is handled in an appropriate way, including escalating to responsible staff for action and also responding to the person reporting the issue so that they know that their efforts in reporting the issue have had an impact and they're kept informed while efforts are are ongoing to fix those issues. And where they need accommodation or alternative access to information and functionality that isn't accessible at that time, that that support is provided. And then communication also involves ongoing accessibility reporting. An organization can demonstrate progress made and identifying where ongoing efforts are still needed where adjustments to accessibility strategy can help address areas where progress is still slower than ideal. And I'm gonna finish with sharing a few more resources. I'm gonna also post these resources into the chat as I read them out. But first of all, it's valuable to actually look at the rule itself. The rule includes all, you know, all the comments that the Department of Justice received and how they responded to each. You know, I think it's a really valuable insight into the rulemaking process in that the comments received are considered carefully and the rationale for either changing the text of the proposed rule or not changing it is included in the official text of the final rule. So if you're wondering why the rule says that something is required or that's not required or why something's exempt, something else isn't exempt, then the chances are the explanation for that situation will be included in the official text of the final rule. The Department of Justice has also provided a number of supporting resources, including a fact sheet on the rule which provides additional sort of high-level information about the content of the rule, why it was introduced and explains certain things like what organizations are covered, what they need to do, what exceptions. There are also a guide for small entities. So this is specifically addressing the challenge that smaller organizations may have in terms of maybe feeling that they don't have the capability or the capacity to meet the rule's requirements. The Department of Justice has provided a guide specifically for those small entities to help them prioritize efforts and approach their obligations in a intentional, deliberate, sort of staged way. And I also want to mention the ADA coordinator training program that exists, and this isn't specific to the rule or specific to digital accessibility, but more broadly, one of the great things about the ADA is the investment that has been provided in helping organizations who are covered by the ADA understand their obligations, and have expertise in place to help them prepare to meet those obligations. And one way to do that is through appointing an ADA coordinator who's gone through the coordinator training program that covers all aspects of accessibility under the ADA, including digital accessibility. And this can be a great source of information. You know, that it can be done online. There are lots of webinars and other virtual educational resources to support the ADA coordinator training program. So anyone who wants to dive into to requirements in more detail, you know, definitely explore that. So with that, I'm going to move to questions. We have a few minutes left for questions. So Anthony, do you want to read them out and I'll try and answer them.

- [Anthony] Yeah, absolutely we can. So I'm just gonna go in order from first that came into most recent. So firstly, Christine's asking, "In light of the change in administration, do you see any changes to how these regulations will be enforced?"

- That's a great question and, you know, without being able to into the future, you know, I think we can maybe look at past behavior of the previous Trump Administration and the promises made in the election campaigning. It may be the case that the enforcement of the rule is reduced. You know, again, I'm just speculating. The rule is in place, the ADA has been amended. So to walk back that rule would require a complex and likely costly legal process. So I think it's unlikely that that would happen, but enforcement may be less strong than it would've been at the election gone the other way. At least that's a prediction. But I think in many cases it's a question of waiting and seeing what happens. For now, the rule's in place. The reason the rule in place is legitimate and taking action to meet the requirements of the rule is still something that will benefit people with disabilities and hopefully also lead to more usable and useful state and local government digital programs and services.

- [Anthony] Awesome. That's good insight. Moving on, Mark is asking, "Was the future proofing," referring to the latest version, "something that legal people suggested or required?"

- The future proofing, and I think this is in reference to which version of the web content accessibility guidelines were referenced in the rule. There is no future proofing in that it references a specific version of WCAG that is not the latest version. So arguably it's already obsolete. But that said, you know, I think it's still a very good baseline definition of technical web accessibility to address. It was not possible, based on the explanation given by the Department of Justice in the rule, it was not possible for them, because of, you know, requirements within the rulemaking process that is not specific to the ADA or specific to digital accessibility, it wasn't possible to provide a more general reference to the latest version of a standard document. It had to reference a specific version of the standard. So any attempt to try to change that situation might have extended the process taken to publish the final rule. And, you know, my interpretation is they took the best sort of middle ground if so to speak. They didn't go align the rule with Section 508, which would've been WCAG 2.0, which was published in 2008, which is a long time ago in the digital world. But neither did they go for WCAG 2.2, which was published just before the public review process for the proposed rule closed. So they could have included WCAG 2.2 but chose not to because they judged that the rule, or the WCAG 2.2 hadn't been in place long enough for covered organizations to become familiar with the rule and be ready to meet the rule requirements.

- [Anthony] Great. Okay. Moving on, Anita is asking, regarding what the rules apply to, "I'm seeing a lot of online advice, primarily from accessibility vendors, reporting that e-commerce and online merchants are being sued for lack of accessible websites per the ADA Title II. So I'm a bit confused, does the ADA Title II apply to my company's website? I work for a B2B marketing consulting company. We do not have clients who are government orgs. We do serve clients in regulated commercial industries such as high tech insurance and finance."

- Yeah, I think if you are not a state or local government organization or receive state or local government, or provide programs and services through state and local governments, then I think it would be ADA Title III would apply to your situation there. That said, I mean, if you were providing services or programs to, or technologies that were used to enable state and local governments to provide programs and services, then, you might not be directly subject to ADA Title II, the use of the technologies that you provide would be, so it would be in your interests to make sure that they are, they do meet the technical requirements so that your customer in government could meet their obligations. But it does sound like, from the situation described in the question, that that would be an ADA Title III situation. But again, I would encourage you to seek legal counsel for confirmation of that situation.

- [Anthony] Great. Okay, moving on. "About the third party content, as an example, we are required by law to post Title IX training materials on our website. The training materials are provided by Title IX organizations, third party, but I'm finding the trainings are not accessible. Am I to assume that I need to push back on them and request accessible documents, or is there an an exception for this? I get different interpretations from different people and organizations. They're curious as to your perspective."

- That's a really interesting question because I think there has been a history of training resources, educational materials that are not designed with an adequate level of accessibility. I think it's hard to know the reason for that. And even when that material is covering issues of equality and inclusion, sometimes that that content is still not accessible, which is a real ironic situation. So ultimately if you are a state or local government and you're obliged to provide those materials online, it's ultimately your responsibility. And I think it is the case that third parties that supply those training materials need to raise their game. And the ADA Title II regulations that were published this year is potentially a means for state and local governments to place some pressure on vendors to improve the accessibility of the resources they provide. Every state and local government organization in the United States is subject to this legislation. So that's the significant buying power there. And a supplier that provides training resources that are designed with accessibility in mind has an opportunity, a real opportunity there if competitors are slow at improving accessibility of their resources. So I would certainly encourage more pressure on suppliers to raise their game and to live by the business that they purport to provide. If your goal is to provide training resources to promote equality and inclusion, then making those training resources inclusive would seem an obvious way to demonstrate your commitment to what you do.

- [Anthony] Okay, great, I'm gonna keep moving along just 'cause we're running close on time. So next, someone would like to know, "What does this mean for non-state and local government entities?"

- I think if, again, you know, going back to the point, if you're an organization that provides digital content, whether you're building websites or providing third-party content and services to state and local government entities, then you want to be making sure that your products and services meet the Title II requirements in order to reassure your customers that, by engaging with you, they're not taking on accessibility risk that could create problems for them later down the line. I think, more broadly, the fact that we have this rule in place and we now know what it says in terms of the technical standard required, the exceptions provided and the other supporting decision-making efforts, it's an insight into what a Title III rule might look like if one was ever to be produced. Again, the likelihood that an ADA Title III rule comes into existence may have reduced with the results of last week's election. But that said, the fact that we do have a rule shows that it we can imagine it would mirror, or it would show, you know, give a strong indication as to what a Title III rule would look like. And again, you know, just to emphasize the Title II rule is a means to clarify the applicability of the ADA to covered organizations in the digital world. So even if you are not covered by Title II, it's still a good reference point and an approach to take to making sure that your digital space is accessible and inclusive, whether or not you are technically covered by ADA Title II.

- [Anthony] Okay, we probably only have time for one more. So Lisa is asking, "Any recommendations or tips for creating an organization plan and action for meeting the deadline? Right now we have all the things David mentioned in place, policy, building capacity, learning, et cetera, but now need to start communicating that we had a deadline and to meet so there's more urgency."

- It's a great question, and creating that urgency is, you know, depending on the organization, you know, different levers will need to be pressed for different cultures, I guess in terms of attitude to digital accessibility. And I think one thing is to try to encourage a movement towards shared responsibility across the organization. You know, adjustments that can be made to reinforcing the importance of everybody to adopt digital accessibility as a core professional responsibility, and you know, something that is part of doing a quality job. Providing resources to support people in that way is important. I think another answer to that question would be clearly prioritizing which resources to remediate first. And I think in many cases, there's a lack of urgency, or we don't know which to do first, so we don't do anything, so it might be perceived as a lack of urgency when it's actually might be almost sort of panic or confusion over where to start. So prioritizing resources and saying, "Let's work on this one first, let's do these things first," show that we're successful and then do some more. So prioritization is a huge driver to demonstrate success and help build momentum.

- [Anthony] Awesome, so thank you very much for attending, and thank you, David, for a wonderful presentation. If we didn't get to your question, we apologize. We'll make sure that we get those to David and he can write up a response. And we'll send the answers to those in a follow-up email that'll have the recording and the slide deck and other useful information. So with that, unless you have anything else to add, David, we can sign off.

- No, I just wanna say thank you everyone for your attention and attendance and especially thank you for the questions. I'm sorry they don't have one-word answers. This is a big topic, but I'm glad to see so much interest. And good luck with your efforts, everybody.

- [Anthony] Awesome. Thank you so much everyone. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Bye now.

- Thank you. Bye-bye.