Digital Accessibility & ADA Compliance
30 Mar 2026, by Clay Boeckel Share :
For counties with populations 50,000 and greater the deadline to meet new standards for website and social media accessibility is coming up April 24, 2026. The core requirement of the new standards is to be Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA, established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) compliant and some helpful other suggestions are as follows:
- Transition from PDF to HTML/Web Forms: The article advocates for moving away from static PDF files, which are described as “ill-adapted for mobile devices” and “unwieldy.” Instead, counties are encouraged to use HTML or web forms, which are more readable by accessibility devices (like screen readers).
- Task-Based (User-Centric) Navigation: Rather than organizing a website by internal department structures, the new standard for modern government sites is to organize content based on the tasks a resident needs to complete.
- Mobile-First “Future-Proofing”: There is an increasing emphasis on designing for mobile devices to ensure the site remains functional and accessible as mobile usage grows.
- AI Readability: Modern web standards now prioritize making content easily “consumable” for Artificial Intelligence. High-quality HTML and accessibility tags make government information more accessible to large language models (LLMs).
This may seem daunting to the less technologically savvy but please reach out if you have any questions and relay this to your local IT guru. For counties with populations less than 50,000 have until April 26, 2027, to become compliant. The full list of required actions and consequences can be found here.
Additionally, for more information please refer to:
1. PDF’s are DOA as new web standards approach