An advanced approach to accessibility

What to do, how to do it, and why it matters

Accessibility is essential to government products and services.

Accessibility is the law

The U.S. Access Board establishes and maintains the Section 508 Standards. Under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, agencies must give employees and members of the public with disabilities access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.

Federal digital products must meet the minimum Level-A and Level-AA Success Criteria (SC) of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) — the globally recognized guidelines for creating accessible digital experiences from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

WCAG 2.2, released in October 2023, outlines the principles, guidelines, testable success criteria, and techniques needed to optimize content. There are four principles known as “POUR,” where all online content should be:

  1. Perceivable - Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive (it can't be invisible to all of their senses).
  2. Operable - User interface components and navigation must be operable (the interface cannot require an interaction that a user cannot perform).
  3. Understandable - Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable (the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding).
  4. Robust - Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technology (and as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible).

WCAG requirements can be technical and hard to understand. The resources below can help.

Becoming literate in accessibility

Accessibility is more than a compliance requirement. It is also the right thing to do. It helps ensure that everyone can access government information, products, and services.

This principle is known as inclusive design. Products, services, and environments are created without the need for special adaptation or specialized design.

A card with the text, "Inclusive design, a/k/a: Universal Design — The belief and methodology of creating buildings, products, or environments to make them accessible to all people, regardless of age, disability, or other factors."

To design inclusively, consider the barriers people may face. Think about permanent, temporary, or situational disabilities that can affect how people use products and services. Also, take a moment to observe how people in different circumstances can be excluded from participating in something that others can do without barriers.

For example, low vision or blind colleagues and members of the public won't be able to access the information in a PDF file if the document hasn't been made accessible. Those who are deaf or hard of hearing won’t be able to participate in conference calls or video training without an interpreter or captioning services.

Reframing the idea of disability

Disability can result when a person’s needs do not match their environment. Accessible design can remove or reduce these barriers.

What might first come to mind are people who have mobility restrictions, tremors, or low- or no vision, or are deaf or hard of hearing.

People can face similar barriers for different reasons. A limitation may be permanent, temporary, or situational:

  • Mark lost most of his hearing after a severe illness. He has a permanent disability.
  • Jesse’s ears are ringing after a concert, and they are having trouble hearing a video. They have a temporary disability.
  • Sam is struggling to listen to a video in a loud office. She has a situational disability.

The fix that benefits everyone in this circumstance might be to apply captioning to the video. That would directly help Mark who has a permanent disability, but also benefit Jesse and Sam who have temporary and situational disabilities. This is known as the “curb-cut effect.” When we design for people with permanent disabilities, folks with temporary and situational limitations can also benefit.

According to Microsoft’s Inclusive Design Toolkit, each year in the U.S., approximately 26,000 new people suffer the loss of an upper limb. When we include people with temporary (13 million) and situational impairments (an additional 8 million people), that’s more than 21 million people each year who experience disabilities.

The idea that things that help people with disabilities can benefit everyone inspired the field of universal design, where buildings and objects are designed to be as usable as possible for everyone, regardless of age or ability. When assistive technology (AT) becomes sufficiently ubiquitous and widely used, it is no longer considered assistive technology. It becomes “normal.”

Temporary and Situational Disabilities

An illustration of a showing the distiction between permanent, temporary, and situational diabilities. There are three stick figure people in this illustration, each with a different type of disability related to seeing — blind, cataract, and distracte

Temporary disabilities — An illness, injury, or medical treatment can cause a temporary disability.

Someone with an arm in a cast will have difficulty typing on their keyboard. Someone whose pupils are dilated after an eye exam may find a bright phone screen painful.

An illustration of a showing the distiction between permanent, temporary, and situational diabilities. There are three stick figure people in this illustration, each with a different type of disability related to touch — one arm, arm injury, and new pa

Situational disabilities — A person may also face barriers because of their situation or environment.

Examples include a new parent holding a baby, someone trying to open a door while holding one or multiple items, or calling into a meeting where they have a visual presentation.

Invisible  disabilities

Some disabilities are not visible. These include cognitive, learning, development, and neurological disabilities. These posters from the U.K. government illustrate the do’s and don'ts around about designing for these some of these types of disabilities.

Side-by-side posters from the GOV.UK's Home office that list the do's and dont's around designing for users with Anxiety (on the left) and Dyslexia (on the right). This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-N

It’s important to keep in mind the context for which folks are using the product or service, and how they’ll be interacting with it.

Consider the circumstances in which people use the product or service. Some people may seek government services during stressful or difficult situations. Design a clear, calm experience that helps them complete their task.

Research

Include people with disabilities in user research. Seek diverse perspectives to understand how different people use the product or service and identify barriers they may face.

Testing

Test for accessibility throughout development. Find and fix barriers before the product is released. Automated tools are not a replacement for building empathy, they are just checks to ensure the product is built with the right code.

  • Code Linting — Linting is the process of running a program that will analyze code for potential errors and prevent basic bugs from ever going live.
  • Automated Testing — Automated testing can catch some accessibility problems.
  • Manual Testing — Verify that the experience is right by running additional scanning tools, walking through the common scenarios that users go through, then add assistive tech to that flow.

With good testing practices, obvious bugs can be fixed before they ever reach an end user. This is just as true with accessibility as it is for everything else.

Where to start

1. Build accessibility into the development process

Establish accessibility requirements early in project lifecycle, ensuring each team member knows their responsibility, and keeping the team accountable for building accessible products. This will ensure that the team is not only following legal requirements, but making the product or service more usable for everyone.

Here are some tasks for each member of the team:

  • Product managers: Prioritize accessibility during project phases
  • Designers or researchers: Create user-friendly solutions that have proper labels, visual contrast, and is constantly tested
  • Engineering: Set up basic tests using standard components, and implement labels and keyboard navigation behavior
  • Acquisitions: Make sure vendor tools are accessible

2. Be mindful of how to be more inclusive when working with others

Create an environment where folks feel comfortable letting the team know their preferences are so that every team member can contribute in their full capacity. Even if no one on your team needs accommodations now, consider how your resources will be used later (and if there are any barriers for folks to contribute).

Here are some practices for being more inclusive with those you work with, many of which are an extension of the courtesy that most people automatically practice.

  • Create presentations or other documents that are accessible: Making internal documents accessible helps co-workers and partners (and is required, too!).
  • Be open to other ways of working if the tools aren’t working for some  coworkers: If one tool isn’t working for some coworkers, switch to another.
  • Make sure everyone can participate: Make use of the Telecommunications Relay Service to help make meetings and work accessible to everyone. 

Try using a screen reader

A screen reader is a form of assistive technology used by folks who are blind or have low vision to help them navigate through digital experiences. It’s one of the most common accessibility scenarios (e.g., providing alternative text for images on a website so that screen readers can announce them).

However, many people are not familiar with screen readers, nor have they experienced their own products through a screen reader. Learning how to use this tool can be intimidating for people who have never used one before, but free versions and tutorials are available.

Note that the most popular screen readers are NVDA and JAWS (with VoiceOver ranking third) according to a 2024 WebAIM survey. The programs that come with each computer or mobile phone provide a basic overview of interaction patterns.

Ideally, screen readers should be tested with multiple browsers. The following is a list of which assistive technologies works best with each browser:

  • NVDA and Mozilla Firefox
  • JAWS and Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • VoiceOver (iOS) and Safari (iOS)
  • Android TalkBack and Google Chrome
  • ChromeVox and Google Chrome (desktop)
  • Windows 10 Narrator and Edge
  • VoiceOver (Mac) and Safari (Mac)

Additional resources

This introduction to accessibility was based on content created by the Technology Transformation Services (TTS) Accessibility Guild. Many thanks to former guild co-leads, Toni Bonitto (TTS Solutions), Jacklynn Pham (18F), Nikki Lee (18F), and David Stenger (USAgov) for creating and iterating on this!

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Disclaimer: All references to specific brands, products, or companies are used only for illustrative purposes and do not imply endorsement by the U.S. federal government or any federal government agency.