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<p>The U.S. Department of Justice’s 2024 ADA Title II rule adopts the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard for state and local government websites, with enforceable deadlines in 2026–2027. This study establishes a population-level baseline of detectable accessibility issues and performance characteristics on U.S. state government homepages ahead of these deadlines. The primary homepages of all 50 U.S. state government websites were evaluated using three automated tools: AccessScan for structural, navigational, semantic, and perceptual issues; WAVE for WCAG-aligned error detection; and Google PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals (loading, interactivity, and visual stability) on mobile and desktop. Automated tools detect only a limited subset (approximately 13–30%) of WCAG 2.1 Level AA success criteria; therefore, results reflect detectable issues rather than comprehensive conformance. AccessScan rated 45 homepages (90%) as “Non-compliant” and 5 (10%) as “Accessible” according to its proprietary heuristics; however, all five exhibited residual WAVE errors (mean 2.4 errors). Common detectable barriers included color contrast failures (mean 8.4 per page), heading structure deficiencies, missing alternative text, and incomplete ARIA labeling. No homepage was free of detectable issues. Performance was generally strong, with 74–98% of homepages meeting individual Core Web Vitals “good” thresholds, though only 40% passed all metrics on both mobile and desktop. Associations between accessibility and performance metrics were weak. Detectable accessibility barriers remain widespread on state government homepages despite generally strong web performance, suggesting accessibility and performance optimizations are often pursued independently. These findings provide a descriptive benchmark ahead of ADA Title II enforcement deadlines and underscore the necessity of complementary manual review and user testing to assess full WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance across public-sector digital ecosystems.</p>

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Automated evaluation of detectable accessibility issues on U.S. state government homepages: a baseline assessment ahead of the 2026–2027 ADA Title II deadlines

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月7日

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  • Tolu Adedoja

摘要

The U.S. Department of Justice’s 2024 ADA Title II rule adopts the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA as the technical standard for state and local government websites, with enforceable deadlines in 2026–2027. This study establishes a population-level baseline of detectable accessibility issues and performance characteristics on U.S. state government homepages ahead of these deadlines. The primary homepages of all 50 U.S. state government websites were evaluated using three automated tools: AccessScan for structural, navigational, semantic, and perceptual issues; WAVE for WCAG-aligned error detection; and Google PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals (loading, interactivity, and visual stability) on mobile and desktop. Automated tools detect only a limited subset (approximately 13–30%) of WCAG 2.1 Level AA success criteria; therefore, results reflect detectable issues rather than comprehensive conformance. AccessScan rated 45 homepages (90%) as “Non-compliant” and 5 (10%) as “Accessible” according to its proprietary heuristics; however, all five exhibited residual WAVE errors (mean 2.4 errors). Common detectable barriers included color contrast failures (mean 8.4 per page), heading structure deficiencies, missing alternative text, and incomplete ARIA labeling. No homepage was free of detectable issues. Performance was generally strong, with 74–98% of homepages meeting individual Core Web Vitals “good” thresholds, though only 40% passed all metrics on both mobile and desktop. Associations between accessibility and performance metrics were weak. Detectable accessibility barriers remain widespread on state government homepages despite generally strong web performance, suggesting accessibility and performance optimizations are often pursued independently. These findings provide a descriptive benchmark ahead of ADA Title II enforcement deadlines and underscore the necessity of complementary manual review and user testing to assess full WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance across public-sector digital ecosystems.