Accessibility as a core value

What accessibility means

Accessibility gets bandied about as a term, but it’s important to clarify what we mean when we’re talking about accessibility, especially when we’re talking about websites and digital services.

Accessibility is one of the most important aspects of modern web development. Digital products and services are considered accessible if individuals with disabilities have equal or comparable access to those without a recognized disability.

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires that all users have equivalent access to information and communication technology developed, procured, maintained, or used by federal agencies. The law pertains to access for people with physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities. Section 508 includes, but is not limited to, computers, software, websites, and electronic documents.

The goal of accessibility at 18F was to build websites, digital products, and services that are usable by everyone, not just to meet minimum standards. We focused on building accessibility into every step of a project, from design to delivery. We did research with people with disabilities to make sure that we were getting feedback from real people – not just automated accessibility tools. Incorporating accessibility into our agile development process helped us iterate and keep making improvements, whether it be a better design, more intuitive navigation, or clearer language.

Accessibility best practices improve experiences for everyone

Everyone will experience some form of disability in their life, whether it be permanent, temporary, or situational. Designing for all makes the experience better for everybody.

Accessibility as a core value means taking into account the full experience, both online and offline, of a government service and thinking through how to make it accessible across all points of interaction.

For example:

• Designing a website that takes into account when a person has a permanent disability like not being able to use a computer mouse due to nerve damage from carpal tunnel. This also helps folks who have a temporary disability like a cast on a broken arm.
• Providing captions for audio content helps people with hearing impairments access that content. Captions benefit many people without hearing loss as well, including non-native speakers and visual learners.
• Writing in plain language makes content understandable by a broader audience. Plain language also makes it easier to provide multilingual translations to expand the reach of your product or service.

18F’s commitment to accessibility from the start

Accessibility works best when incorporated into an agile production environment. It’s very hard to adequately address accessibility concerns at the end of a project, but if taken into account at the beginning, it’s quite straightforward and cost effective.

18F was committed to accessibility for our projects, for GSA, and for our teammates.

• Accessibility for our projects: We created the 18F accessibility guide to gather best practices and resources to support our efforts in modernizing government tech. Although the 18F site was taken down when our team was eliminated, our commitment to working in the open didn’t stop there. We saved and republished the 18F accessibility guide for public use.
• Accessibility for our agency: 18F colleagues amplified and advanced GSA’s accessibility efforts. This included 18F colleagues who helped lead the Accessibility Guild. Everyone who joined 18F participated in onboarding training in accessibility practices, and many of our teammates were accessibility experts in their own right. We offered training opportunities to keep up to date in international accessibility standards like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which manages the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). 18F created checklists for use in GSA of best practices to support making internal documents and files accessible.
• Accessibility within our teams: 18F teammates represented a cross-section of Americans, including people with disabilities. Some of us were Deaf or hard of hearing; others had vision or mobility challenges. We all brought our talents and experiences to our work. Our meetings were hosted with American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters. We had a culture of making our files and assets accessible to screen readers and keyboard tabbing, including slides, documents, forms, charts, and diagrams. We included verbal descriptions of what we look like before speaking at meetings. We also were open about our accessibility efforts and asked for feedback on our GitHub repos as part of our commitment to working in the open.

Examples of 18F and our work on advancing accessibility

Before 18F was eliminated on March 1, we were actively working on projects on behalf of the American people that have since been interrupted. These included providing support and improving accessibility for:

• Department of State: 18F was supporting the team to implement the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act and OMB Memo M-23-22 guidelines across Consular Affairs websites and services this year. This effort was going to support various teams to identify improvements for accessibility implementation, including for the transformed travel.state.gov to ensure the American public has trusted international travel information and easy access to consular services. 18F was also developing accessibility tools and resources to scale best practices across all of Consular Affairs.
• Crafting a new weather.gov: 18F was working to support the creation of a new weather.gov website that would have made that public resource much more accessible. The current version is hard to navigate, especially for those with visual or mobility impairments, and those using it only on a mobile device. A more accessible resource could be especially valuable to the elderly, who may require more time to prepare or evacuate when bad weather is coming.
• Ninth Circuit Courts redesign: This project was remediating the current public site’s accessibility issues. The result would have made information about the US’s largest circuit court easier to find and easier to access by people with disabilities.
• Permitting Council: Working with an internal team, 18F was prototyping a new permitting dashboard to replace an aging web portal that the team was using to enter and monitor project information on a legacy platform. The goals of the project were to bring better transparency, accountability, and predictability to monitoring of infrastructure projects. FAST-41 is a legislatively established process for improving federal agency coordination and timeliness of environmental reviews for infrastructure projects. Ending this 18F work seriously impacted the near-term future of this effort, including delays in improvements to transparency and, ultimately, faster permitting of projects that contribute to the American economy.