ClearGov Platform Upgrades to Meet New Federal Guidelines for Digital ADA Compliance Meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA Requirements to Ensure Accessibility for All Users In our digital age, ensuring that all citizens can access a government’s information is not only a vital part of being an inclusive community, it will soon be a legal requirement. In 1990 The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was established as the world’s first comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities. The law set in place standards for reasonable accommodations for the disabled to access public buildings, as well as prohibitions on discrimination based on someone’s disability. Since the act was put into law, the internet has changed society, and accessibility for this new digital future has lagged behind and made it difficult for disabled persons to access a vast portion of online content. With recent updates to the ADA that were passed this Spring, this is about to change and governments, in particular, will need to adapt. On April 24, 2024, the Federal Register published the Department of Justice’s final rule updating its regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The final rule has specific requirements about how to make sure that web content and mobile applications are accessible to people with disabilities. This new regulation leverages the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA as its basis of guidelines for governments to adhere to. ClearGov recognizes the importance of ADA compliance and has taken proactive steps to develop our public-facing communication tools to meet these essential accessibility standards. These tools include Transparency, Digital Budget Book, ClearPlans, ClearForms, and Digital ACFR (coming soon). Take a look at our WCAG 2.1 Level A and Level AA Checklist for more details! Additionally, our external tools meet the accessibility requirements outlined in state-specific Colorado House Bill HB21-1110. Features That Make ClearGov Compliant ClearGov’s public-facing communication tools are now ADA-compliant out-of-the-box. These solutions were designed to help local governments make their content accessible to all citizens through an easy-to-use, web-based interface that provides the familiar experience of navigating a website — and it is optimized to deliver that experience for users with disabilities. Some of our built-in accessibility features include:
Beyond being ADA-compliant by default, ClearGov empowers its users to add custom content like images and charts in an ADA-friendly way. Users can easily add alt text descriptions to custom images and charts to ensure this content is accessible to users with disabilities. Benefits Of A Web-Based Approach A key advantage of ClearGov’s web-based approach is that it automatically meets many accessibility criteria that PDF documents cannot. While PDF accessibility is possible, it requires much more manual effort. For PDF files, accessibility means ensuring proper document structure, descriptive alternative text for images, human-friendly tags and labels, adequate color contrast, and many other detailed requirements. Web content produced by ClearGov’s solutions follows accessibility standards from the start and has built-in content management capabilities to maintain compliance. ClearGov’s web-based approach to documents has many benefits, including:
Get Inclusivity & Peace Of Mind With ClearGov By choosing ClearGov’s modern public-facing communication tools, governments can be confident they are not only delivering an outstanding digital experience, but an inclusive one as well. By meeting the latest accessibility standards and legislation, governments protect themselves from risk while ensuring no community members are excluded from accessing important public information. Schedule a quick demo today to see if ClearGov’s public-facing communication tools are right for your organization.  |
