HB21-1110: new standards for web accessibility
Jozianne Mestas | Office of Information Technology Apr 18, 2024PLEASE NOTE: This information is being shared before campus level communications to ensure ample time for completing imperative web site updates. Expect to receive additional communications from university leadership regarding Colorado’s House Bill 21-1110.
Hello University Web Professionals Community,
We want to inform you about a new Colorado accessibility law, HB21-1110, that affects university websites and provide you support in ensuring your department/school/college web site is compliant with new standards for web accessibility.
What is HB21-1110?
Beginning July 1, 2024, the new Accessibility Law for Colorado State and Local Governments (HB21-1110) makes it a civil rights violation for a government agency to exclude people with disabilities from receiving services or benefits because of a lack of accessibility.
While HB21-1110 applies to more than web-based content, as a government entity, public universities such as CU Anschutz and CU Denver, are required to meet the State of Colorado OIT’s web accessibility standards.
What does this new law mean for you as owners/content managers of university web sites?
The Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology has deemed web accessibility standards WCAG 2.1 Level A, AA as minimum compliance standards.
Per the Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology’s Accessibility Operations Memorandum, liability for noncompliant content lies with the Colorado government entity that manages the content. Failure to comply will result in a statutory fine of $3,500 for each violation.
Therefore, as university web site owners/content managers, you must ensure your website content meets the minimum web accessibility standards before July 1, 2024.
How to ensure your web site complies with the new law?
CU Anschutz OIT Web Services offers access to a tool called Siteimprove for all university web sites hosted on our content management system, Sitefinity.
Siteimprove reviews your website for accessibility and provides specific recommendations for attaining Level A and AA web accessibility standards.
Please ensure that all web content managers on your team are registered users of Siteimprove by sending an email with your university web site URL to [email protected].
We strongly urge you as web content owners to begin addressing any reported web accessibility issues flagged as A and AA issues as soon as possible, before HB21-1110 goes into effect on July 1, 2024.
What is the penalty for noncompliance?
An important note: Each CU Anschutz department, school, or college is responsible for making their content accessible. As a result, each individual CU Anschutz department, school, or college will be required to pay for any fines related to accessibility violations identified after July 1, 2024.
Getting Help
For Sitefinity hosted university web sites we have created a dedicated Siteimprove Resources Page for tips, tutorials and guides to resolving many common Siteimprove A and AA flagged issues. Please watch the following video for an overview of how to use Siteimprove:
If you need additional assistance understanding the Siteimprove platform, have accessibility questions, or need additional guidance on how to fix certain accessibility issues, you can also submit a ticket at [email protected].
CU Anschutz OIT web team members, Chris Rodriguez, Web Developer Accessibility UX Specialist, and Scarlet Bowen, Web Analytics Support Specialist, are available to field questions or set up meetings, as needed.
For university SharePoint Online intranet sites, please review the following resources:
Additional Accessibility Evaluation Tools are also listed on our @web web site:
Future Feature: Siteimprove Plug-In for Sitefinity
In related news, our teams are currently researching the integration of Siteimprove within the Sitefinity platform, which will enable content editors to more seamlessly and proactively edit content for accessibility within Sitefinity. Stay tuned for more details on this development.