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
Oregon
Our preliminary evaluation took place on the State of Oregon's public-facing website.
ADA Accommodation Statement - Score: 5
We searched for "ADA accommodation" on the above website and followed a link to the "Reasonable Accommodation" page, housed within the employment department. The primary text on the page gives an overview of the reasonable accommodation process and breaks content into the following sections:
- Process
- Timeline
- Forms
- Employee Training
- Additional References and Resources
The information provided is comprehensive. The links in the forms section are beneficial, where an individual can initiate the accommodation process. There was also a vast array of links listed under the additional resources section, categorized by:
- Disability
- Limitations Related to Pregnancy, Childbirth, or Related Medical Conditions
- Religion
- Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Stalking, or Harassment
The links indicate an organization thinking about the entirety of the accommodation process, not just a departmental procedure. The page lists contact information for the ADA Coordinator, Backup ADA Coordinator, and the Human Resources department to the right of the body text.
We thought the level of detail and transparency warranted a high score, between 4 and 5. We decided to give Oregon a 5, given that the process has a dedicated page with excellent contact information.
ADA Grievance Procedure - Score: 5
Grievance information is available on the Department of Transportation (DoT) and Judicial Department (OJD) websites. While the DoT site contains excellent information, we will focus on the latter, which provides all critical information without clutter.
The OJD Accessibility/Access for Persons with Disabilities provides some critical contacts. There is a physical address for the Office of the State Court Administrator and OSCA ADA Coordinator, a telephone number, and an email address for ADA matters. There is a nearby link to request accommodations and a section on filing complaints containing a word document, PDF, or online form.
After a brief accessibility statement outlining the OJD's adherence to section 508 and W3C design guidelines, the page provides a Resources section with a few links. One goes to a document listing the ADA coordinator in every county and a link marked "ADA Compliance Notice," which redirects to a new page offering a compliance statement, and sections, ADA Information or Services, Policy of Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability, and Internal ADA Grievance Procedure for Public Access Issues.
The section outlining the grievance process explains the process clearly and provides the necessary contact information to file a complaint or request reconsideration. Given the valuable information on the DoT and OJD sites, we felt that the state earned a 5.
Accessibility Statement - Score: 3
The general accessibility statement does not contain much information. It outlines a commitment to equal opportunity and the following standards and guidelines:
- Web Content and Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 AA
- Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1973
- Plain Language Act of 2010
There is an email link to Oregon's E-Government Service Desk for any questions, concerns, or suggestions. 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.
Automated Errors - Score: 4
Unfortunately, despite all the detail and high scores for transparency-related ADA content, the site still suffers from some basic accessibility-related errors. WAVE identified one error related to a broken ARIA reference and 63 color contrast errors on the homepage alone.
That said, the contrast errors appear to be false flags as we tested the contrast of the errors identified with the Colour Contrast Analyzer and found that, for those we tested, those errors appeared to be code-related. While digital accessibility assessments are not in the scope or intent of this review, we wanted to be fair and decided to test two department-level pages, Emergency Management and Environment, both of which had less than 10 automated errors (one had 5 and the other had 4).
Overall
Overall, the State of Oregon's publicly-facing site scored 17 out of 20 available points, giving them an accessibility awareness score (AQ) of 85%, which we believe is respectable and, again, could easily be improved with a few tweaks.
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: Alaska, California, Hawaii, and Washington.
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