By: Jay Wyant, Office of Accessibility

Last June, we published a blog post about a possible update to the State’s digital accessibility standard. The current standard includes Section 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

Over the last year, we:

• Researched the impact of the WCAG 2.1 success criteria on content creators.
• Explored the success criteria’s value for end-users.
• Held several statewide presentations and listening sessions.
• Surveyed state employees on what they’d need to be ready.

After presenting our findings, we received approval to update the standard. 

The decision:

• We will update the standard to include WCAG 2.1.
• The effective date will be March 1, 2024 and may be later.

What’s next?

The update will impact technology and content creators differently by role. Everyone will need to understand how to make sure their work supports the updated standard. Examples could include:

• Content designers and creators who use specific tools such as Adobe InDesign.
• Website designers and developers.
• Business Analysts (BAs) and Quality Assurance professionals.
• Agency and IT portfolio managers.
• eLearning developers.
• IT project managers.
• People involved in procurement.

The updated standard will impact each user type differently. The issues and steps the InDesign creator needs to understand can be different than that of a web application developer. 

Making it happen

We have kicked off a steering committee and a standard task force.

The steering committee will:

• Identify key groups internal to the state.
• Ask the groups to identify their knowledge/training gaps.
• Work with the groups to collect resources and create guidance as needed.
• Communicate with all stakeholders.
• Determine the effective date for the new standard.

The goal is to prepare state agencies and their employees with the resources and direction they need to plan, design, and create or buy accessible information and technology that supports WCAG 2.1

The standard task force is reviewing the current accessibility standard. Based on that review, they will draft an update to include WCAG 2.1. The goal is to publish the new standard by fall 2023, with the effective date designated by the steering committee. This will help set expectations for vendors and other content and technology creators.

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