ADA Title II Compliance Webinar

This webinar breaks down the most important changes shaping digital accessibility today: Critical Title II updates Key WCAG 2.1 AA requirements Proactive compliance steps

00:00:00

Andrew Husted: We’re going to get started with the overall presentation. First of all, welcome everybody. This is the second webinar we’ve done lately—this one is all about what’s happening in the world of ADA compliance as it pertains to websites, digital properties, and things like that. It’s a big topic right now. A lot of folks in the audience reached out ahead of time saying, “Hey FSM, we just got notified about this thing—what do we do? How can you help us?” That activity really caused us to say, “Okay, we need to find a way to help our partners through this compliance situation as it pertains to accessibility and their websites.” So welcome, everybody who’s looking to learn more. We’re going to dive in and cover a few things in the agenda.

00:00:59

Andrew Husted: I want to start with web accessibility—what it even is—because it’s kind of a nebulous topic. I say “accessibility” and people think of physical accessibility, like someone who uses a wheelchair, and ask, “What does that mean on a website?” We’ll cover what it is, what it looks like, and go through examples of digital accessibility. Then we’ll talk about why it matters, and why it’s become urgent. And finally, what FSM can do to help you achieve ADA compliance on your websites as we look ahead. A couple people are on this call.

00:01:55

Andrew Husted: Hello, I’m Andrew Husted, President and CEO of FSM. We have a few other FSMers on the call as well. I’ve been in the marketing world for about 20 years, exclusively with marketing agencies, and my background is actually as a web developer. So I have a technology background, but I’ve blended that with marketing throughout my career, which helps me speak to topics like this. Also on the call is Justin Mancari. Go ahead, Justin.

00:02:48

Justin Mancari: Hey everybody. I’m VP of Growth here at FSM. I’ve been here about two and a half years, and I’ve been in the agency space for about eight years. I’ve worn many different hats—both inside agencies and now more focused on the outside—helping identify problems clients are experiencing and then figuring out effective, valuable solutions FSM can provide.

00:03:04

Andrew Husted: Awesome. I don’t have slides for everybody, but there are a few other FSM folks hanging out on the call—Amy and Megan are here, and I see Julia as well. Good to see you guys. Alright, let’s dive in.

00:03:27

Andrew Husted: What is web accessibility? If we had to define it: it means designing and developing websites, digital content, mobile applications—basically anything online or on a digital device—so people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with them effectively. This is a big topic and it can get technical, so we’re going to use examples to make it feel more real.

00:04:04

Andrew Husted: I want to relate it to physical accessibility. If you look at a ramp in front of a building, most of us immediately understand: someone with mobility challenges benefits from that. Quick shout-out—we have a partner, Next Day Access, who does physical accessibility implementations. This is one of their projects, so thanks for letting us use the photo.

00:04:46

Andrew Husted: Now, how does that translate digitally? If we put that image on a website, but the person viewing the website has a visual disability, they may not see it clearly—maybe it looks blurry or low-contrast. We’ve built a website expecting people to gain information from the photo, but some people can’t see it.

00:05:04

Andrew Husted: One prime example of how we address this is alternative text. If someone uses a screen reader, the screen reader can describe the image, like: “a metal wheelchair ramp with handrails leading to the entrance of a brick building, surrounded by flowers and decorative plants.” That gives someone with a visual disability access to the same information the image is meant to communicate.

00:06:08

Andrew Husted: So who is web accessibility for? A big group is people with visual disabilities: total blindness, low vision, color blindness, cataracts—anything that makes content harder to see. Another group is people with hearing disabilities. Think video and audio content—podcasts, YouTube videos, background videos. If someone is deaf or hard of hearing, we need a way for them to access what’s being said.

00:07:08

Andrew Husted: Accessibility also matters for motor disabilities—people who have difficulty using a mouse or keyboard and may need other devices to navigate. And cognitive or neurological disabilities: dyslexia, memory differences, attention challenges, processing differences. That affects how we write and structure content—using clearer language, being more direct, and reducing unnecessary complexity.

00:08:18

Andrew Husted: And there are temporary or situational limitations, too—broken arm or hand, low-light environments, slow internet, small devices, or websites that don’t account for mobile usability properly. So accessibility isn’t only about disability. It’s about universal usability: making sure everyone has an equal opportunity to experience the content we provide, regardless of ability or technology.

00:09:19

Andrew Husted: Let’s walk through examples of what digital accessibility looks like. This isn’t a full list, but it gives good context. We talked about color blindness—so color contrast matters, and it’s measurable. ADA Title II requirements target a 4.5:1 contrast ratio, and we can use tools to measure it.

00:10:14

Andrew Husted: Orange is a tough web color—hard to see on white and hard to see on black. Here’s an example of orange text on a light background: the contrast ratio is 1.39:1. If you have color blindness, you might not be able to read it—or even see it clearly. To fix it, we increase contrast. Black on near-white can be something like 19.58:1, which is very readable.

00:11:09

Andrew Husted: Text size and zoom are important too. People with low vision or cataracts may need to zoom in. Some sites disable pinch-to-zoom on phones, which is a problem. That should be supported. Sometimes there are also accessibility tools that let users adjust text size or other settings.

00:11:46

Andrew Husted: Here’s another example that’s really important: keyboard navigation. Some people can’t use a mouse and need to tab through content. A well-built site supports that with proper focus indicators and a logical tab order. Screen readers often navigate in a similar way, combining keyboard interaction and audio output.

00:12:11

Andrew Husted: Captions and transcripts are another easy win. If you have video or audio, you need captions or transcripts so people can read what’s being said. It can be generated captions, a transcript, or more stylized captions—any method that converts audio into text is helpful.

00:13:04

Andrew Husted: Discernible link text is another one. We see “Learn more” buttons everywhere. But if a screen reader encounters eight different “Learn more” links, it’s unclear what each one refers to. Instead, use more specific text like “Learn more about websites and hosting,” so the meaning is clear even out of context.

00:13:56

Andrew Husted: Then there are ARIA labels—Accessible Rich Internet Applications. Example: a trash can icon. Humans see it and know it means “delete,” but there are no words. A screen reader might skip it if it’s just an empty icon element. If we add an ARIA label like “Delete item,” the screen reader can announce it as “button, delete item.” That’s what makes icon-only controls accessible.

00:15:04

Andrew Husted: There are many more examples. We’ll talk later about how you find all these issues systematically—there are tools for that. But first: why does this matter? Why should websites be accessible?

00:15:19

Andrew Husted: There are a number of significant reasons. One: in the U.S., it’s a civil right under the Americans with Disabilities Act. People have a right to access public content. Second: inclusion. About 25% of Americans have some type of disability—that’s a much larger percentage than most people realize.

00:16:04

Andrew Husted: Third: it makes usability better for everyone. A lot of accessibility-driven features become mainstream. For example, swipe-to-text is a usability feature that helps everyone, but accessibility improvements often lead to innovations like that.

00:16:39

Andrew Husted: Fourth: SEO and AI benefit. Accessibility helps search engines and AI understand content better, and Google cares about accessibility signals. Fifth: it reduces legal risk—especially for government-related organizations. There are lawsuits, and there are attorneys aggressively pursuing accessibility cases against brands with non-compliant digital experiences.

00:17:33

Andrew Husted: And honestly, most importantly: it’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to be inclusive and give everyone access to the content we create, even if it takes effort and resources.

00:17:55

Andrew Husted: Now, how do we implement accessibility? There are four key categories. First: Perceivable—content must be visible and understandable. That includes alt text, captions, color contrast, and resizable text.

00:19:05

Andrew Husted: Second: Operable—people must be able to use the site, including with keyboard navigation and visible focus indicators. Another important concept is “skip to content.” Some sites have a lot of navigation code before the main content. A skip link lets screen reader users jump past the navigation and go straight to the H1 and main page content.

00:19:59

Andrew Husted: Third: Understandable—this overlaps with good UX. Forms should be clear about what’s required. Layouts should be consistent and predictable. Interactions shouldn’t surprise people.

00:20:21

Andrew Husted: Fourth: Robust—it needs to work across devices and assistive technologies. That’s influenced by how we code and how the site is structured.

00:21:05

Andrew Husted: So why is this urgent? Many of you reached out because of a new final ruling. In April 2024, the Federal Register published a final ruling updating regulations for Title II of the ADA. It outlines specific requirements and who they apply to. We’ll send this resource to everybody—this is the article on ada.gov that outlines the ruling. It’s long and includes legal language, so it’s not light reading.

00:22:10

Andrew Husted: Who does it affect? It affects all state and local governments. So if you represent a city or township, it affects you. It also affects contractors or vendors providing digital services on their behalf. If you’re not sure whether it applies to you, reach out and we’ll help diagnose your relationship to government services and whether you fall into that category.

00:22:58

Andrew Husted: The ruling requires accessibility for all websites—including PDFs—and mobile apps. If you have a lot of PDFs and downloadable resources, those have to be accessible too.

00:23:28

Andrew Husted: There’s a deadline. If your service footprint is greater than 50,000 people, you have to comply by April 2026. If you serve fewer than 50,000 people, the deadline is April 2027. Some organizations have delayed deadlines regardless of population. If you have questions about whether you fall into a special category, talk to us.

00:24:31

Andrew Husted: Many of you aren’t part of a government organization. So what if you’re not required? I’d still say: it’s the right thing to do—and legal risk is real. Targeted lawsuits go after brands even outside the Title II mandate. They can be successful, and we’re seeing them increase.

00:25:09

Andrew Husted: Quick case study: Buckeye State Credit Union, a partner we’ve worked with for about nine years. In 2018 they had a lawsuit filed by an attorney in California, with a client in Minnesota—outside their service footprint. Their website wasn’t compliant, so a lawsuit was filed. We executed ADA remediation using similar tools, proved the site was compliant, and the lawsuit was dismissed. Having audits and documentation gives you protection—you can show evidence of compliance.

00:26:34

Andrew Husted: And the chart here shows accessibility lawsuits increasing year over year, and we expect that to continue—especially once the mandate takes effect.

00:27:08

Andrew Husted: So that’s what accessibility is and why it’s urgent. Now: how can FSM help? We’ve built a service over the last few months designed to make you compliant, help you prove it, reduce legal risk, and serve users with disabilities. The service comes in four phases: setup, remediation, training, and ongoing maintenance.

00:27:45

Andrew Husted: Setup starts with installing a tool called Acquia Web Governance. It scans every page and every PDF on your site and provides a dashboard report showing issues and where they occur. That’s the baseline so we know what we’re working with and can build a remediation plan. Larger sites typically have more to fix; smaller sites may have less.

00:28:46

Andrew Husted: Then remediation: we scope and quote based on the hours needed to resolve the issues found. We fix things like color contrast, alt text, navigation and focus issues—whatever the scan identifies. We re-run scans during remediation and watch the issues drop away until the site is compliant. After remediation, you receive a report that documents compliance.

00:29:41

Andrew Husted: Next is training. Once the site is compliant, we train your team so as you add content—images, pages, documents—you keep it compliant. We don’t want to do all this work and then have content updates accidentally introduce new issues, like missing alt text.

00:30:47

Andrew Husted: Finally, maintenance. This is important for staying compliant over time—especially because legal risk can hinge on even small issues. We run a monthly audit with Acquia Web Governance and provide reporting, and you’ll have dashboard access as well. After training, your team can spot things like “an image was added without alt text” and correct it. If a large number of new issues show up, we may do remediation again on a cadence that makes sense—every six months, annually, whatever fits.

00:32:03

Andrew Husted: The goal is ongoing accessibility—not just a one-time remediation.

00:32:13

Andrew Husted: Quick note: these audit tools are not cheap. FSM has worked hard to make this affordable. Acquia Web Governance is the best value we found, and also among the more affordable options. Off the shelf, under 500 pages is around $10,000/year just for the tool, and it can go up to $25,000/year depending on size—and that’s only the audit tool, not remediation.

00:33:07

Andrew Husted: What we’ve done is negotiate a shared plan across multiple partner organizations, spreading the cost across participants. That can save up to 75% on software cost for your organization. We also evaluated other platforms like Level Access, UserWay, and Stark—either they were significantly more expensive or not the right fit.

00:34:14

Andrew Husted: On pricing: setup is priced by page count, and monthly fees scale with pages as well because the vendor charges per page. The more pages you have, the higher your fee. The more organizations that participate, the more everyone’s costs go down. Larger sites also require more setup effort.

00:35:06

Andrew Husted: We included pricing ranges because we don’t yet know how many of you will participate. More participation means more shared costs and lower fees. To finalize pricing, we need to gauge participation. We’ll send a survey right after this webinar so you can indicate whether you plan to participate, and that will help us lock in pricing and get started.

00:36:16

Justin Mancari: And if you can complete that survey as soon as possible, it helps us finalize pricing—and it helps ensure we can get everyone compliant by or before the April deadlines. Ideally, fill it out before Thanksgiving.

00:36:35

Andrew Husted: Great. Allyson, I think you raised your hand first. Do you have a question for us?

00:38:11

Allyson Rey: Thanks, Andrew. Great presentation. My question is: I understand we’ll need to devote some dollars to this. Do we also need to budget time on our side? Will this feel like a website refresh? Is there a chance something could break while you’re doing the work?

00:38:40

Andrew Husted: Great question. Our team will implement this as seamlessly as possible, and the goal is the opposite of breaking things—we’re trying to make everything work better. The main time we might need from your team is reviewing scans and deciding how to proceed. And if we run into brand color issues—like contrast problems with a specific brand orange—we may need your feedback on what to do instead. But there shouldn’t be a huge time commitment on your side; we’ll handle most of it.

00:39:30

Allyson Rey: Okay, thank you.

00:39:34

Andrew Husted: Kathy, I think you raised your hand next. Do you have a question?

00:39:38

Kathy Myers: I hit it accidentally because I saw Allison had, and I wanted to be like Allison.

00:39:45

Andrew Husted: Great, great.

00:39:47

Allyson Rey: You’re so funny, Kathy. Good to see you.

00:39:51

Andrew Husted: Did anyone else have questions about how this works—anything I can clarify further?

00:40:11

Justin Mancari: I had a clarification question that might help. You mentioned the deadline being April 2026 or April 2027 depending on how many people you serve. Is that the population of the geographic areas you serve, or the number of clients/customers/users that interact with your organization?

00:40:30

Andrew Husted: Great question. It’s the service footprint—the population of the geographic region you serve—not your client base. For example, if you serve multiple counties, you’d total the population of each county you serve. So it’s not the number of clients; it’s the geographic footprint population.

00:41:05

Kathy Myers: A lot.

00:41:07

Andrew Husted: Yes—great question. Any other questions?

00:41:24

Andrew Husted: Alright, not seeing any. I just want to thank everybody—this was a really great turnout. Hopefully the world of accessibility feels a little more clear now: what we’re doing, why it matters, who it affects, and how it impacts you. Keep an eye out for the survey—we’d love quick responses so we can move quickly, because April will be here before we know it and we want to help everyone get compliant ahead of that.

00:42:33

Kathy Myers: Are you going to send out the video of this before you send out the questionnaire or the PowerPoint?

00:42:43

Andrew Husted: We’ll likely send the questionnaire first. It takes a little time for the video to be recorded, processed, edited, and posted.

00:42:57

Kathy Myers: Okay.

00:43:00

Andrew Husted: Great question. Thanks again, everybody, for coming. We’re looking forward to hearing how you’d like to participate and moving forward with ADA compliance. Have a wonderful day. Great to see you all. Bye.