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
Alaska
Our preliminary evaluation took place on the State of Alaska's public-facing website.
ADA Accommodation Statement - Score: 5
Finding the state's ADA Accommodation statement leads users to a robust collection of resources related to disability-related programming.
First and foremost, visitors are provided links to administrative orders signed at the state level regarding disability-related programming, laws, and rights.
Administrative Order No. 129 makes it a crime to interfere with persons with disabilities, permits disabled persons to serve as jurors, provides guidance on the accessibility of public buildings, requires procurement regulations to prohibit discrimination, provides rules for preference in hiring for persons with disabilities, establishes a mechanism for processing complaints, and provides provisions governing programs for persons with disabilities.
Administrative Order No. 262 serves as a supplement to 129, which primarily designates the responsibility of coordinating ADA-related programs with an ADA Coordinator, to be housed in the Department of Administration, and is tasked with facilitating a statewide, coordinated approach to ADA compliance.
The ADA Accommodation page includes links to requesting ADA Accommodations, contact information, ADA Coordinator Listing document (that goes beyond the state assigned ADA Coordinator), and standards documents related to filing grievances and complaints forms.
Given that this site provides a dedicated page and department, an established process, and a designated individual, we ranked this section with the highest score - 5 (see scoring matrix below article).
ADA Grievance Procedure - Score: 5
The State's ADA Grievance Procedure page is also fairly robust. We typically find a single grievance form, process, or contact, for the public to interact within many state and municipality sites.
However, Alaska's page appears to include more than a dozen separate grievance processes that include:
- State ADA Coordinator's Office for informal resolution for disability-based grievances (this section includes a form, filing and processing guidelines − 90 days), and the specific statute that governs how grievances are processed.
- Alaska State Commission for Human Rights with filing time and link to process
- Anchorage Equal Rights Commission with filing time and link to process
- State of Alaska Commission for Human Rights with filing time and link to process
- Section 504 Compliance
- State Equal Opportunity Officer
- State Equal Opportunity Officer for Health and Social Services
- Civil Rights Office with the Department of Transportation
- Federal Contract Compliance Program with filing time and link to the local program (this is enforced federally by the OFCCP)
- State Ombudsman
- Office of the Long Term Care Ombudsman
- Office on Victim's Rights
- Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault
Given how robust the page is, with links to coordinators, filing times, and other helpful information, including contact details and designated individuals and departments, we ranked this section with the highest score - 5 (see scoring matrix below article).
Accessibility Statement - Score: 4
The Accessibility Statement itself is relatively generic. Here is the statement verbatim:
The State of Alaska is committed to serving all Alaskans. Using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, Level AA as our guide, we continue to improve our content and services to make our websites more accessible for everyone. We want our content and services to be easy to access, use and understand. If you have trouble using our website, please contact the SOA Webmaster for help. We may be able to offer an alternate format or update our content to make it more accessible to you and others.
To receive the highest score on our matrix regarding the Accessibility Statement (matrix below), an organization should meet the following criteria on their page:
A score of 5: Existing accessibility statement that communicates ongoing efforts in a transparent way and lists resources for visitors to improve accessibility, has designated individuals to coordinate and strive for WCAG 2.0 at a minimum, and a designated department and process to improve accessibility.
Given that the Accessibility Statement presented on the Accessibility Statement page contains only a commitment to accessibility, we believe the score should be between 3 and 4.
However, a search for the word "accessibility" reveals a more detailed process, including guides, a contact person to report accessibility issues, all of which appears to be housed in a designated department (Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development) and has helpful links for users to better navigate the State's website. Because of the additional effort, though it is not easy to find from the accessibility statement page, we have given this section a score of 4 (see scoring matrix below article).
Automated Errors - Score: 1
Unfortunately, despite all the detail and high scores for transparency-related ADA content, the site still suffers from some basic accessibility-related errors. On the homepage alone, WAVE identified 2 errors related to linked images missing alternative text, an empty heading, and 35 color contrast errors.
Given that we settled on a score of 1 for sites that had more than 20 errors on any given page, the score for this site is a 1 (see scoring matrix below).
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 to QA content posted on a publicly facing website. This score could be drastically improved if detected automated errors are improved.
Overall
Overall, the State of Alaska's publicly facing site scored 15 out of 20 available points, giving them an accessibility awareness score (AQ) of 75%, which we believe is very respectable, and again, could easily be improved with a few tweaks to what appear to be contrast and alt text errors.
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 accessible services.
As organizations update their publicly facing content, we will update these posts.
Methodology
Scoring
Other posts in this series: California, Oregon, Hawaii, and Washington.
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