Most government agencies know they need to address digital accessibility. Fewer know where to start. The gap between "we should do something about accessibility" and a functioning, sustainable program is where most agencies stall — paralyzed by scope, unclear on ownership, and unsure how to prioritize.
This playbook provides a structured path from zero to operating program. It's based on what works for agencies that have successfully stood up accessibility practices, and it's designed to be practical — not theoretical.
Phase 1: Foundation (Weeks 1–4)
Assign Ownership
Accessibility without clear ownership is accessibility that doesn't happen. You need:
An Accessibility Coordinator — one person whose explicit responsibility includes digital accessibility. This doesn't need to be a new hire; it can be an existing role with added responsibility and allocated time (minimum 25% FTE for a mid-size agency).
This person is responsible for:
- Maintaining the accessibility policy
- Coordinating remediation efforts across departments
- Tracking compliance metrics
- Serving as the internal point of contact for accessibility questions
Executive Sponsor — a director or C-level champion who ensures accessibility gets budget, attention, and cross-departmental cooperation when needed.
Establish Your Baseline
You can't improve what you haven't measured. In the first month:
Inventory your web presence. How many sites, pages, and documents do you have? Most agencies underestimate significantly.
Run an initial automated scan. Use HelloCivic Scanner to crawl your primary website and generate a baseline score. This gives you a concrete number to improve from and helps identify the severity of your starting position.
Identify your top 10 resident-facing services online. These are your priority remediation targets — the pages and workflows residents actually use.
Document known complaints. Has anyone reported accessibility barriers? Through 311 systems, ADA coordinator complaints, or informal channels? These are your most urgent fixes.
Write Your Accessibility Policy
A policy doesn't need to be complex. It needs to:
- State your commitment to WCAG 2.1 AA (or 2.2 AA)
- Identify your compliance timeline
- Name the responsible parties
- Describe how residents can report barriers
- Commit to responding within a specified timeframe (48 hours is reasonable)
Publish this on your website. It demonstrates good faith and gives residents a clear path to report issues.
Phase 2: Quick Wins (Weeks 4–8)
Deploy Immediate Accommodations
While deeper remediation takes time, you can provide accommodations immediately:
- Install HelloCivic Access on your primary website. This gives residents immediate control over text size, contrast, spacing, and other adjustments — providing help today while you fix underlying issues over the coming months.
- Add an accessibility feedback mechanism. A simple form or email link where residents can report barriers.
- Fix the most critical barriers. From your baseline scan, address any "critical" severity issues on your top 10 services. These are typically missing form labels, empty buttons, and keyboard traps that completely block access.
Train Content Creators
Your biggest ongoing accessibility risk is new content being published inaccessibly. Train everyone who creates web content on:
- Writing meaningful alt text for images
- Using proper heading hierarchy (H1 → H2 → H3, not skipping levels)
- Creating accessible links (descriptive text, not "click here")
- Publishing accessible PDFs (or converting to HTML)
- Writing in plain language
This doesn't require extensive training — a 90-minute session covers the essentials. Follow up with a one-page checklist they can reference before publishing.
Start Document Remediation
Prioritize your most-accessed documents:
- Pull your top 50 documents by download/view count from analytics
- Run them through HelloCivic Accessible Docs
- Replace the PDF links with accessible HTML versions
- Work through the backlog in priority order from there
Phase 3: Systematic Remediation (Months 2–6)
Prioritize by Impact
With your baseline scan data, create a remediation roadmap:
Priority 1 (Month 2–3): Critical and serious violations on high-traffic pages. These are the issues most likely to trigger complaints and most impactful to fix.
Priority 2 (Month 3–4): Template and component-level fixes. If your header navigation has an accessibility issue, fixing the template fixes every page at once.
Priority 3 (Month 4–5): Moderate violations across remaining pages. Address these systematically, section by section.
Priority 4 (Month 5–6): Minor issues and enhancements. Polish the experience, address remaining warnings.
Fix Systems, Not Symptoms
The most efficient remediation targets the source, not individual instances:
- CMS templates: Fix the navigation template once, fix it everywhere
- Form builders: Configure accessible defaults so new forms are compliant by default
- PDF workflows: Change how documents are created, not just how they're published
- Component libraries: Update shared UI components so all pages benefit
Establish Monitoring Cadence
Set up HelloCivic Scanner on a weekly schedule for your primary sites. Review scan results at a weekly 15-minute standup:
- New issues introduced this week?
- Progress on open issues?
- Any regressions from recent deployments?
This prevents the backlog from growing while you work through existing issues.
Phase 4: Sustainability (Month 6+)
Embed in Processes
Accessibility only sustains if it's part of how you already work:
- Content publishing: Accessibility checklist before any page goes live
- Procurement: Accessibility requirements in every technology RFP (require VPATs from vendors)
- Development: Accessibility testing in QA workflows
- Budget: Annual accessibility line item (tools, training, periodic audits)
- Onboarding: Accessibility basics in new employee training for web-facing roles
Measure and Report
Track metrics quarterly:
- WCAG conformance score (from Scanner)
- Number of open issues by severity
- Issues resolved vs. new issues introduced
- Resident complaints received and resolution time
- Document remediation progress (% of library accessible)
Report these to leadership. Visibility creates accountability and justifies continued investment.
Plan for Manual Testing
Once automated issues are under control (typically after 6–9 months), invest in manual testing:
- Quarterly keyboard-only navigation review
- Semi-annual screen reader testing of key flows
- Annual user testing with people with disabilities
Stay Current
Accessibility standards evolve. Plan for:
- Staff attending one accessibility conference annually
- Quarterly review of new DOJ guidance or enforcement actions
- Annual policy and procedure review
- Tool updates and capability expansions
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Trying to fix everything at once. Prioritize ruthlessly. Perfect is the enemy of done.
- Treating it as a project with an end date. Accessibility is an ongoing practice, not a project.
- Delegating without empowering. The coordinator needs authority, not just responsibility.
- Ignoring PDFs. They're often the majority of your accessibility debt.
- Not training content creators. You'll create issues faster than you fix them.
- Buying tools without process. Tools find problems; process fixes them.
The First Step
Don't overthink it. The first step is always the same: measure where you are today. Run a scan, get your baseline score, and you'll immediately see the path forward. Everything else follows from knowing your starting point.
HelloCivic's platform handles the measurement, monitoring, and many remediation tasks. But the decision to start? That's yours. Make it today.
