Sites and documents everyone can actually use
Accessibility remediation for government: websites, service pages and public documents fixed at source level against WCAG 2.1 AA, so residents with disabilities can complete tasks — not an overlay widget pasted on top. Under the U.S. Department of Justice’s ADA Title II rule, larger public entities must conform by April 26, 2027, and smaller ones by April 26, 2028. The deadlines are fixed; what agencies need is conformance that holds up, not cosmetic cover.
Who it fits, and what gets in the way
Web and information teams at every level of government, holding large estates of pages, forms and PDFs against a deadline that is already set.
A screen reader cannot read the site’s navigation and no form completes by keyboard alone; residents with disabilities are pushed back to the physical counter
Most of what the market sells is an overlay widget: one line of code claiming conformance, while the underlying issues stay — and overlays do not count as remediation when complaints and litigation arrive
Public PDFs number in the thousands with no tag structure; batch converters mangle tables and reading order faster than they fix them
What you get
| Component | What is included | Deliverable |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility audit | WCAG 2.1 AA checked three ways: automated scans, manual inspection, screen-reader passes | An audit report locating every issue by criterion |
| Website remediation | Structure, focus order, contrast and form labels fixed in the source, not masked by plugins | A remediation log keyed to audit items |
| Document remediation | PDFs and office documents given tag structure, reading order and alternative text; large estates inventoried first and prioritized | Conformant document packs with sampling records |
| Re-test & acceptance | The same standard re-run after fixes, reported before/after | A re-test report, including anything not yet conformant |
| Publisher training | Content teams trained on accessible publishing so new pages stop creating new issues | Training record and a publishing checklist |
How it runs
Audit & scope
About two to three weeks: sampled audit of sites and documents into an issue list and a locked scope; price fixed on scope
Template layer first
Shared templates and components fixed once, benefiting every page; template log delivered
Pages & documents
Remediation in batches ordered by traffic and service importance, re-tested per batch, reported weekly
Acceptance & training
Full re-test report; content team trained; sign-off item by item against the report
Boundaries
Not included
- No overlay widgets passed off as remediation: they do not fix source issues and do not survive scrutiny in complaints or litigation
- No promise of zero complaints: what is promised is criterion-by-criterion remediation with a re-test trail, and the judging standard printed in the report
- Historic document estates are volume-bound: the estate is inventoried and prioritized rather than pretended away in one pass
What we need from you
- Change access to site source and the content system
- An inventory or access path for the document estate, to size the work
- One coordinating counterpart across departments
How engagement and quoting work
Government engagements are scoped contracts: audit first, scope locked, then a price — paid through the contract channel with acceptance milestones in writing. Cooperative purchasing arrangements and framework agreements can be discussed. Start via the contact page with your entity level and estate size, and we schedule the scoping audit. There is one acceptance standard: the re-test report, mapped criterion by criterion to WCAG.
Questions on this page
Is an accessibility widget not enough?
Not as remediation. An overlay adjusts presentation in the visitor’s browser while the source issues remain; regulators and courts look at the page itself. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has acted against quick-conformance marketing claims on exactly this point.
We hold tens of thousands of PDFs. What then?
Inventory first: documents tiered by traffic and service importance, high-use and transactional items first, the long tail on a rolling schedule. Volume and tiers are stated in the audit report before anything is priced.
Does the site go down during remediation?
No. Templates and pages are fixed and released in batches, each re-tested as it lands.
What stops new pages from breaking again?
Publisher training and a publishing checklist are part of delivery. An annual sampling engagement is also available if you want new content re-checked quarterly.
Does remediation take the site offline?
No. The work happens on a copy and in staging, then ships page group by page group after verification; template changes trial on one page class first before they roll out in full.
Our document estate is huge. Where do we start?
By traffic and legal weight: service guides, application forms and decision notices first, the rest in quarterly batches. The scoping audit returns a prioritised list your team can sign off item by item.
How do we start?
Use the contact page with your entity level and a rough size of the site and document estate. We schedule the scoping audit and return scope and price from evidence, not guesses.
Related
Resident Services Front Desk
Once the site conforms, the service front desk gets its turn
Sites and documents everyone can actually use
Tell us where it hurts first. Scoping and a written quote come before anything starts; looking costs nothing.
Or ask Leo, the assistant at the bottom right, first — get the questions clear before you write to us.
