On April 24, 2024, the Department of Justice announced a final rule updating Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This update looks to improve and enhance the digital experience for disabled users. The Department of Justice is enforcing compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.
WCAG is a set of internationally recognized guidelines, originally created in 1999, and most recently updated in October 2023. In September 2024, UConn launched a system wide working group to monitor the remediation of the websites and support the community in their own efforts to this end. WCAG 2.1 AA is mid-level conformance that was originally adopted in 2018.
The regulations update identifies this specific technical standard as one that state and local governments must follow to meet their existing obligations under Title II of the ADA for web and mobile app accessibility.
Each WCAG level builds on the previous level. In other words, to meet the requirements of Level AA, your content needs to follow all Level A and Level AA success criteria. To meet WCAG Level AAA, you’d need to follow all the success criteria included in the WCAG guidelines.
Below are some of the new success requirements for WCAG 2.1 AA.
- Maintaining — at a minimum — a color contrast ratio of 4.5:1 between text and background elements.
- Writing subheadings that are organized logically (i.e., H1, H2, H3, etc.).
- Keeping navigation mechanisms (such as header and footer links) consistent from page to page.
- Ensuring content is operable in different display orientations.
- Providing captions for video content.
- Ensuring content is fully operable for keyboard users.
- Content on hover or focus.
- Text spacing - line height (line spacing) to at least 1.5 times the font size, spacing following paragraphs to at least 2 times the font size, letter spacing (tracking) to at least 0.12 times the font size, word spacing to at least 0.16 times the font size.
For more information, visit the UConn Accessibility Title II Page.