I have been working on several different digital accessibility projects in the last few months. I’m excited about the upcoming release of a podcast episode and continuing education workshop on this topic. It is good timing because the new Title II rule takes effect in April 2026. This rule mandates that state and local governments make their websites and online content accessible for people with disabilities. This includes state and local government sites and public school systems.
I have mixed feeling about accessibility standards because while they provide benchmarks and guidelines to follow, they tend to take the focus away from the users with disabilities who actually need the accommodations. And in addition to that, they are just good overall practice for users in general.
Think captions for instance: Video captions on YouTube or social media reels are intended for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but they can also be useful for someone who needs to watch a video without sound because they are in an extremely loud or extremely quiet environment. Alternative text for images are intended for people who are blind or have low vision, but they can also support users who have unreliable internet bandwidth that may not support image loading.
Accessibility is more than just a series of standards. It invites opportunities to develop creative solutions or work arounds. I remember when Dark Mode on the computer was primarily used by visually impaired users, but now it is widely used by both sighted and visually impaired users across multiple devices and computers.
The biggest takeaway is that there are some things you can do to help make your online presence more accessible without needing to dive too deeply into code or technical expertise. Section508.gov has an accessibility reference guide with instructions for including accessibility features on major social media sites. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have automatically generated alt text, but it can be really vague.
Here is an example of a photo of my dogs that I posted on Facebook. The autogenerated text says “May be an image of indoors and living room.”
I can override the text to include information about my dogs. Kira is sitting on the brown chair on the left and Riley is sitting on the right end of the red couch. Trying to include the full intent of this picture is too much for alt text so I try to include that in the photo caption or description. I like to think of how I would recreate this image in my mind.
In today’s world where mindless news sharing and doomscrolling is rampant, taking the time to include alt text or captions also prompts users to slow down a bit. It encourages them to take a deeper look at what they are posting, and whether they truly want their intended audience to see it.
Follow the regulations provided by ADA, but also take into consideration that there are actual human beings who need website content to be accessible in order to navigate daily life tasks.
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