The Accessibility Awareness Quotient (AQ) looks to measure an organization’s awareness of disability and accessibility requirements and expectations based on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The study includes a review of an organization’s public-facing web content, policies and procedures, transparency of its accommodation process, grievance process, accessibility statement, and easily identifiable accessibility barriers.
Related: 3 Reasons We Need to Shift From Accessibility Awareness to Action.
Pacific region
We conducted our review on the five public-facing websites of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii.
ADA Accommodation Statement - Score: 4.80
The Pacific states scored well concerning ADA Accommodation Statements. Each state in the region had quality accommodation information available within the .gov domain. We particularly liked the structure of California’s statement located on its page within the department of rehabilitation. CA presents the details of the ADA by its components, followed by helpful links and contact information, including TTY.
The most comprehensive resources surrounding an accommodation statement belong to Oregon within its employment department. Not only does it break down the reasonable accommodation process into helpful sections like process, timeline forms, employee training, and additional resources, but it provides a wealth of resources including and beyond the immediate scope of the ADA process, such as limitations related to pregnancy, religion, domestic violence, harassment and more. The Oregon DoR page also lists excellent quality contacts.
The Pacific states scored highly in this section, with Oregon, Hawaii, Alaska, and California each receiving scores of 5, and Washington a 4 for 24 out of a possible 25 points. Despite the significant awareness levels, we thought each state could improve significantly by centralizing and homogenizing the accessibility information. We repeatedly found the accommodation information tough to locate, only available through a search. Much of what we found did not necessarily reflect a statewide approach to accessibility issues, and little of it was linked to other critical information like the accessibility statement or the ADA grievance procedure.
ADA Grievance Procedure - Score: 4.40
We found that the Pacific states did well when it came to presenting information about the ADA grievance procedure. Again, California stood out with the considerable attention given to the process on the website for the courts. We loved the steps taken to break down and explain the grievance procedure and the fact that it provides the contact information for each district (court) and supreme court.
Alaska was also impressive. Where we typically find a single grievance form or process for public use, Alaska offers more than a dozen separate grievance procedures on their page, including the state ADA coordinator’s office, the state commission for human rights, section 504 compliance, state Ombudsman, and more.
The Pacific states averaged 4.40 and 22/25 points for this section, with California, Oregon, and Alaska each receiving 5s and Washington and Hawaii a 4 and 3, respectively. Again, all states can improve by making grievance information easier to locate and linking it to the accessibility and accommodation statements.
Accessibility Statement - Score: 3.40
We saw considerable divergence from the high scores of the previous two sections when it came to state accessibility statements. The most comprehensive by far came from California, which not only mentioned its adherence to WCAG 2.0 AA but provided a web maturity model and quite a few valuable links, including to departments dedicated to dealing with accessibility issues.
An average score of 3.40 means that states scored 17 out of a possible 25 points. California scored a 5, Alaska a 4, Oregon and Washington 3s, and Hawaii a 2. The difference in scores is entirely related to the amount of information available in and around the accessibility statement. In the sense that an accessibility statement is almost always available within one click from the home page, it is the easiest and most obvious place to display helpful information (and links) and set the tone.
Automated Errors - Score: 3.20
Reducing automated errors is a consideration in our scoring methodology. It is not the most crucial determinant of accessibility awareness but can shed light on awareness. Given the level of accessibility knowledge needed to add an accessibility feature like alternative text (very little), we estimated that errors found in the site's structure, on the homepage, or those that were easily identifiable with automated testing tools represented a good snapshot of where an organization is in accessibility awareness.
With an average score of 3.20 or 16/25 points, this was the lowest regional score for the Pacific states. California and Hawaii scored 5s, Oregon a 4, and Washington and Alaska both 1s. There is significant room for improvement.
Note: We are also aware that automated errors can produce false-flag events. However, we do believe that the existence of things like empty headings, color contrast issues, and the missing alternative text speaks to an ongoing need for QA content posted on a publicly-facing website. This score could be drastically improved if detected automated errors are improved.
Overall
Overall, the Pacific region’s publicly facing sites scored 79 out of 100 available points, giving them an accessibility awareness score of 79%. We believe they can quickly improve by reducing site errors, improving the content of accessibility statements, and centralizing otherwise quality ADA accommodation and grievance procedure information (or clarifying their process further for visitors).
Again, we have not completed a deep dive into the overall accessibility of the site. Our only objective was to identify the state’s awareness of its ADA requirements and commitment to accessibility.
As organizations update their publicly facing content, we will update these posts.
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