Making the Most of Digital Accessibility and the ADA Compliance Extension

State and local governments have more time to meet new federal requirements for digital accessibility. For many organizations, that extra year is welcome — but it shouldn’t be mistaken for a reason to wait.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s rule under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) establishes Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard for web content and mobile applications provided by state and local governments. Following an extension announced earlier this year, the compliance deadline is now April 26, 2027, for larger public entities and April 26, 2028, for smaller ones.

The additional time recognizes the amount of work required to meet these requirements across websites, online forms, mobile applications and electronic documents. For agencies deciding how to use that time, one place to start is with the digital services residents depend on most.

At first glance, a public form can seem like a relatively small piece of a government agency’s digital presence. But forms are how residents apply for services, submit information and complete everyday interactions with government. Residents who rely on screen readers or keyboard navigation need accessible forms to access those services.

As governments move more services online, accessibility becomes an important part of improving the digital experience for the entire community. The City of Tucson saw the scale of that challenge firsthand.

Tucson has more than 300 public-facing Laserfiche Forms across 18 departments. Residents use them for everything from starting or stopping water service to requesting disability-related transportation.

As the city worked toward ADA compliance, accessibility audits identified issues across its forms. Some were relatively small from a technical perspective, but meaningful to the people using them. Browser tabs, for example, displayed generic titles such as “New Submission.” This made it difficult for people using screen readers, or anyone navigating several forms at once, to identify which form was open. The city developed JavaScript that replaced the generic title with the actual form name.

The team also addressed skip links that allow keyboard and screen-reader users to bypass repetitive navigation, along with color contrast, form labels, radio buttons, checkboxes and other WCAG-related issues. Tucson ultimately implemented more than 20 accessibility fixes across its public-facing forms environment. Developing, testing and implementing those improvements required more thansignificant staff time. But that work gave Tucson a foundation it could use to address accessibility more consistently going forward.

Tucson’s experience illustrates one of the biggest accessibility challenges facing public organizations: scale. Digital content exists across departments, systems and formats, making accessibility improvements a significant undertaking.

Finding and correcting existing issues is only part of the job. Agencies also need to prevent the same problems from appearing in the next form or digital service they publish. Tucson turned what it learned during remediation into repeatable practices built on governance.

Using custom JavaScript and CSS capabilities within Laserfiche Forms, the city incorporated its accessibility fixes into a standardized template for future development. It also established design guidance for areas such as approved colors, alt text and accessible form controls. Form designers verify accessibility before publication. The city’s governance, risk and compliance team uses tools to continuously monitor its digital environment.

These practices help Tucson address accessibility as teams develop and manage digital services, rather than fixing issues after the fact. Documenting those standards and fixes also provides a common reference for creating new forms and updating existing ones.

Beyond forms, agencies also need to consider how they create and manage other public-facing digital content. That includes establishing ownership and incorporating accessibility into the processes used to create, review and publish websites, PDFs and documents.

As agencies review their broader digital environment, they must also distinguish between the accessibility of the technology they use and the accessibility of what they create with it.

Laserfiche documents accessibility across its products through Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs), covering areas such as web content, user interface navigation and product documentation. Organizations remain responsible for the accessibility of the forms and content they create or store, and how they configure them.

Meeting that responsibility requires agencies to consider how people with disabilities interact with the digital services they provide. For public-facing forms, that means asking questions such as:

Automated accessibility scanners can help identify issues such as missing labels, color contrast problems and heading structure. True accessibility also requires understanding how well a digital experience works for the person using it.

The compliance deadlines have moved, but the obligation hasn’t. Title II still requires equal access to services today, and governments can face legal exposure before the new compliance dates.

Agencies can use the extension to assess their digital assets, prioritize services with the greatest impact on residents and address accessibility gaps. Establishing standards now can also make accessibility easier to maintain once the immediate remediation work is complete.

Public-facing forms are a good place to apply that thinking because they sit directly between government services and the people trying to use them. Tucson’s experience shows what that can look like in practice. Agencies can put the additional time to good use by learning from its experience, addressing existing issues while improving how they develop digital services for the future.

Learn more about the City of Tucson’s approach to digital accessibility.