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
Washington
Our review includes an analysis of information publicly available on the State of Washington’s public-facing website.
ADA Accommodation Statement − Score: 4
Washington does not have a page reflecting a statewide ADA accommodation process. Through a site search of “ADA accommodation,” we tracked down some helpful information at departmental and county levels. However, it was challenging to find.
Accommodation information was also inconsistently presented among the department pages we reviewed, including Washington Courts, the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, and the Office of Financial Management.
Another, on the Washington State Legislature’s page, offers a reasonably comprehensive statement about department policy. As such, the page is an example of what we generally look for at the state level. Here is the statement:
The Washington State Legislature is committed to making legislative activities and facilities accessible to all. The Legislature has taken steps to ensure that individuals with disabilities have full access to legislative activities, programs, and services. The Senate, the House of Representatives, and Legislative Support Services (LSS) have appointed Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Coordinators to coordinate the implementation of the ADA and language access services and to provide assistance if questions or concerns arise.
The statement is clear and concise. Better yet, the rest of the page reflects a clear commitment to accessibility. Beyond the multitude of ADA contacts listed on the page (linked in six places with a map), the Legislature provides the following list of communication aids:
- TTY-Assistance
- Assistive Listening Devices
- ASL Interpreters and Readers
- Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART)
- Documents in Alternate Formats
- Spoken Language Interpretation
Presenting these options on the same page as the accommodation statement reflects the comprehensive and multi-faceted approach to accessibility that we hope to find at the state level and are helpful resources to a wide range of people.
Below the list of aids, the site provides accessibility guidance for Windows 10, Mac OS, and Chromebook, followed by a section of accessible documents and videos. Finally, the page has a section listing the contact information for three different ADA coordinators.
ADA Grievance Procedure − Score: 4
Washington does not appear to have a statewide policy for grievances. We searched “ADA Grievance” and found that they are expressed at individual agency and municipality levels. This approach has no uniformity, with many entities simply posting links to documents without explanation. Some counties have helpful information; others provide little.
Pierce County is a practical example of what we are looking for. The county lists the name of the ADA coordinator and provides multiple ways to contact the organization, including phone, fax, TTY, Relay Service, and email.
Accessibility Statement − Score: 3
The accessibility statement can be found through a link on the home page. The statement is located on the WaTech government page.
The page defines accessibility, is transparent with its policies, and provides a method to contact the State if accessibility barriers are encountered.
A dedicated individual tasked with managing accessibility and a way to contact them would have brought the score up a point, but we still believe they've made a solid effort.
Automated errors − Score: 3
The site had 28 automated errors, 23 of which were due to very low contrast. To be fair, we ran the contrast errors through TPGI's Colour Contrast Analyzer to verify and found about a quarter were legitimate (particularly the H3 errors with a contrast ratio of 2.2:1 − there were 4 of those).
Interestingly, the scan didn't pick up on the search engine button's contrast issue, which was a green background on dark green text (failed by a hair − 4.4:1) That would be a total of 10 errors based on our count (without going beyond the scope of this review).
Given that we settled on a score of 3 for sites with more than 10 errors and less than 15 on any given page, a 3 it is.
Note: We are aware that automated errors can produce false-flag events and do not reflect the overall accessibility of a site. However, we do believe that the existence of things like empty headings, color contrast issues, and missing alternative text speaks to an ongoing need for a QA review of content posted on a publicly-facing website. This score could be improved if detected automated errors are reduced.
Overall
The State of Washington’s publicly facing site scored 14 out of 20 available points. We believe the site could improve by providing a unified, statewide approach to accommodation and accessibility. There is helpful information within the .gov domain, but it is often difficult to access, inconsistently presented, and not connected to other critical resources.
As organizations update their publicly facing content, we will update these posts.
Methodology
Scoring
Other posts in this series: Alaska, California, Oregon, and Hawaii.
Comments