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Articles March 24, 2025

Making Accessibility Business as Usual: Maintaining and Optimizing Accessibility Over Time

Matt Leahy Virginia Booth
Authors
Matt Leahy, Virginia Booth

​In the first post in our “Making Accessibility Business as Usual” series, we explored how organizations can get started with accessibility and build a strong foundation to enable meaningful and sustainable progress toward their accessibility goals. In the second post, we discussed best practices for making improvements to your digital properties, prioritizing the inclusion of accessibility throughout all stages of the process, and equipping your teams to create accessible outcomes as efficiently and successfully as possible.

​In this final post, our message is simple: Accessibility is ongoing. Here, we’ll discuss how you can sustain and enhance your accessibility efforts over time.

1. ​Genuine Accessibility is More Than Guidelines

​Accessibility is not a one-and-done activity. Even after you get your website to a point of compliance, it’s important to continue to monitor accessibility as updates are made and to pursue opportunities to increase the quality and inclusivity of the experience.

​Some ways you can keep improving and expanding the accessibility of your site include remembering it’s more than meeting guidelines, assessing your site regularly, or seeking user input. It’s about usability. And that’s an ongoing effort.

​WCAG Conformance is Not Comprehensive

​Many accessibility considerations have a real impact on users but aren’t currently represented by criteria. CapTech encourages all accessibility designers and clients to continue to push beyond baseline WCAG requirements and explore and implement additional accessibility best practices. You’ll not only be better positioned to meet new requirements, but you’ll also create a more richly accessible experience for all users.

​Did you know? When WCAG is updated, most new criteria are just formalizing best practices that are already well known. For example, in WCAG 2.2:

  • ​2.5.7 Dragging Movements – Restricts functionality that relies on pointer-based dragging motions, a known challenge for users with limited motor control. WCAG 2.1 already restricted more complex pointer gestures like swiping and pinching; 2.5.7 simply expands those restrictions to include simpler dragging movements as well.
  • 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) – Specifies minimum size and spacing for touch targets. Target size was already a AAA criterion in WCAG 2., and Apple and others have recommended target size minimums for many years.
  • ​3.3.8 Accessible Authentication – Limits the use of cognitive function tests (like solving a puzzle or transcribing a code) in authentication flows. The addition of this criterion formalizes established best practices for designing for cognitive disabilities.

​2. Assess Your Website on a Regular Basis

​With your website’s first accessibility audit , you’ll like identify multiple remediation efforts needed to achieve that initial baseline of compliance. Depending on the state of your site, this can be daunting. However, once you have established a strong foundation and have incorporated accessibility best practices into your ways of working, subsequent reviews should be less eventful. Here are a few solid reminders:

​Ongoing Updates

​Ensure that all updates made to your website – from publication of new content to implementation of new features – have appropriate accessibility checks and testing performed. In between updates, monitor accessibility with an automated scanning tool like Google Lighthouse or axe Monitor and address minor issues as they arise.

​Annual Assessment

​Establish a regular cadence – annually, if possible – for performing site-wide accessibility checks and assessing the overall compliance of your website. This is also a great time to update the accessibility statement published on your website to reflect any changes.

Audit and remediation, followed by ongoing updates and monitoring, then annual assessment before circling back to updates and monitoring

​3. Seek Input from Users with Disabilities

​While accessibility efforts often rely heavily on standards like WCAG, we should remember that accessibility is ultimately about real people interacting with your website or app.

​Provide Feedback Channels on Your Website

​Provide a prominent and accessible place on your website, separate from general website feedback or contact requests, where users can report accessibility issues. Monitor and reply to these requests promptly and use them to inform your accessibility roadmap.

​Include Users with Disabilities in Research and Testing

​The only guaranteed way to know if a new design will work for users with physical, sensory, or cognitive disabilities is to hear directly from users. You can recruit participants with disabilities by contacting organizations in your area that serve these communities or by using a recruitment tool like Fable.

​Add Users with Disabilities to Your Organization

​The best way to create truly inclusive experiences is to include individuals with this lived experience on your team as active participants in the design and development process. While this can take time to achieve, you can take the first steps by working to improve the accessibility of your workplace to accommodate a more diverse team. ​

Get Started Today

This “Making Accessibility Business as Usual” series provides an overview of how to achieve accessibility conformance and build the accessibility maturity of your organization. We covered how to assess your current state and make a plan, integrate accessibility into your processes, and continue to enhance your level of accessibility over time. By recognizing that accessibility is an ongoing process, regularly assessing your website, and actively seeking input from users with disabilities, you can create a more inclusive and friendly experience for all users.

Remember, accessibility goes beyond mere compliance with guidelines. It is about creating a digital environment where all everyone, regardless of ability, can access and interact with your content effectively.

To learn more, please check out the webinar that CapTech presented in partnership with the Colorado Statewide Internet Portal Authority (SIPA), Making Accessibility “Business as Usual.”

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