Intelligence
More findings than anyone can fix at once. That's normal.
What matters is which findings get addressed first. Esther ranks each one by the urgency of what it blocks, and by what courts and regulators have already required of others.
A few findings carry most of the risk.
Some findings are an inconvenience. Others stop someone from finishing what they came to do: paying a bill, booking an appointment, completing an application. Those shut someone out, and they are the barriers other organizations have been required to fix. Esther puts them first.
| What was found | Where it ranks | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A checkout that cannot be used without a mouse | Critical | Stops a purchase |
| An application form that cannot be read aloud | Critical | Stops someone from applying |
| A photo with no description | Lower | Blocks nothing someone came to do |
| An old notice, rarely opened | Lower | Rarely needed |
Each finding carries a date, where it was found, and its evidence: enough to hand straight to whoever owns it.
Four months
A county agreed to bring all existing election content on its website to WCAG 2.1 Level AA within four months, and to make new content conform before it is posted. An independent auditor, approved by the Department, reviews the site, and the county reports every six months.
Everything already on the site, in four months, checked by someone else.
Right in March. Wrong by September.
Two things happen after a report is written, and they are different problems.
- What you have online keeps moving. Every service on your websites and apps matters. Keeping track of every update is a job nobody has.
- You need more than a moment in time. A report describes the day it was written. Findings have to keep up. How often the record is refreshed is set with you: on a schedule, on every release, or both.
| When | What changed | A one-time report |
|---|---|---|
| March | A form is checked, and it passes | Accurate |
| May | A department replaces a PDF | Now silent |
| July | The website software is updated | Now silent |
| September | An update stops a form working without a mouse | Now wrong |
Nobody is a fair judge of their own work.
The obligation stays with you, whatever your vendor promised.
A vendor cannot objectively grade its own work. Verification comes from someone with nothing at stake in the answer.
Each vendor has its own pattern of issues across its clients' sites.
$2,050,000
A claim alleged that a state parks reservation website, built by a vendor under a state contract, did not meet the contract's accessibility requirements. The court-approved settlement totaled $2,050,000. The vendor paid for an audit by an outside accessibility firm, directed by the parks department, and addresses the issues it finds at the department's direction.
The standard was already in the contract. The settlement paid for someone else to check the work against it.
Many accessibility calls are black and white. Some are not.
They are plain, and they apply the same way everywhere. A form works without a mouse or it doesn't. A video has captions or it doesn't. There is nothing to argue about, and Esther applies those the same way on every page, on every date.
The rest depend on the page: what it is for, who uses it, and what sits around it. Here, qualified people read the same rule and sometimes reach different opinions. That is how the standard is written, not a failing in anyone's work.
Esther has a position on those, the way any expert does. It also carries the reason: what was found, what it was read against, and why it was called the way it was. Every judgment call is reviewed by an accessibility practitioner before it reaches you. Someone can disagree with the conclusion and still use the record, because the thinking is in it.
And the reading does not drift between checks. The same rules are applied the same way every time, so when a finding changes between one date and the next, what changed is the site and not the opinion.
Where to start, what to show counsel, and proof of progress.
- It tells you where to start. Every finding carries its evidence and its place in the ranking, so whoever owns the work can begin with the barriers that matter most.
- It gives your counsel something to answer with. What was found, where, on what date, and what came first: a record of diligence, rather than a position somebody has to construct later. The engagement can run through your counsel.
- It shows progress. Every check is dated, so the record shows what was found, when, and the list getting shorter as issues are resolved. A fixed item can be re-tested on request, and the record updated.
The hard part is knowing which findings matter.
Thirty minutes. Your situation, and where to begin.