A statewide ADA Title II initiative to modernize the way a state agency provides information to the public — migrating from legacy, inaccessible file formats to modern, accessible ones, and shifting an entire organization's mindset about what "accessible" means.
State government produces an enormous volume of public-facing information — forms, reports, policy documents, presentations, data files. Over time, that library had grown to more than 175,000 documents across formats. Almost none of them were accessible to people using screen readers, assistive technology, or non-standard displays.
The deeper problem wasn't just the files. It was the culture that created them. "We've always done it this way." "Let's just make it a PDF." Accessibility was either an afterthought or entirely absent from how teams thought about creating and publishing information. A federal compliance deadline changed the urgency — but the real work was changing the mindset.
"The goal was never just compliance. It was teaching an organization to think differently about who they're communicating with."
The initiative required two parallel tracks running simultaneously: tactical remediation of existing documents, and strategic culture change so new documents would be created accessibly from the start.
On the remediation side, the scale required a systematic workflow — triage protocols to prioritize which documents to address first, classification systems to understand what was in the archive, and tooling to manage progress across a corpus that would take years to work through. We built frameworks for automated screening, manual review queues, and exception handling for documents that required specialized treatment.
The culture work was harder. That meant retraining staff not just on how to use accessibility tools, but on why accessible communication is the baseline expectation — not a special accommodation. Weekly office hours, department-level training sessions, accessible document templates, and a shift from "let's make it a PDF" to "let's make it accessible for everyone, regardless of age or ability."
"The hardest part wasn't the documents. It was replacing twenty years of 'that's just how we've always done it' with a better question: who does this actually need to reach?"
175,000 documents isn't a project. It's an infrastructure problem. Every document in that archive represents a moment when someone in the public needed information — and may not have been able to access it. A person using a screen reader trying to navigate a PDF with no reading order. An older constituent trying to fill out a form they can't zoom into. A parent trying to understand a policy document that failed contrast testing.
The initiative puts accessible communication at the center of how the agency operates — not as a compliance checkbox, but as a fundamental expectation about who government information is for. Everyone. Regardless of age, ability, or the technology they use to access it.
The work continues toward the April 2026 ADA Title II deadline. The systems, templates, training, and culture shifts built through this initiative will outlast the deadline — because accessible communication isn't a project with an end date. It's how the work gets done from here forward.
Whether it's a compliance deadline or a genuine commitment to reach more people — we can help you figure out where to start and how to scale it.