Website Accessibility Deadline Looms: What to Do First

Is your website accessible to people with disabilities? If your organization receives money from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, your deadline to make it accessible is next Monday, May 11, 2026.

Some government organizations recently got a reprieve from the Department of Justice – state and local government websites have another year to meet accessibility requirements. And smaller organizations with fewer than 15 employees have always had until May 10, 2027.

But so far the deadline is still in place for non-government organizations with over 15 employees.

With the deadline looming, what can you do to make your website compliant with the law? The list of requirements is long, and you might not have enough time to fix everything (WCAG 2.1 Checklist).

What are the first steps to making a website accessible to people with disabilities?

Helpfully, the organization that created the list has provided a summary of what to tackle first.

1. Make a Clear and Descriptive Title

Web pages contain metadata that describe what the page is about. The title is what appears in the browser tab when you open a webpage, and it’s the first clue to both search engines and assistive technology what the page is for.

2. Write Descriptive Alt Text for Images

Alt text is a description of what the image shows that gets added to the code surrounding an image. Depending on the number of images on your site, this can take forever. Thankfully, this is something AI can help with – although it’s important to check its work. Multiple WordPress plugins offer this service for a low cost, and some other platforms, such as Webflow, have the feature built in.

3. Clearly Organize Headings

The headings and subheadings on a page help people find their way around your pages, and they provide key landmarks for screen reader software that reads the content of a page out loud.

Headings should have a clear hierarchy in the code.

4. Make Text Legible Against its Background

Assume some readers are color blind, and make sure the brightness of the text is sufficiently different than the background color. This is hard to just eye. Here’s a good contrast checker.

5. Avoid Images of Text

Sometimes its easier to create a graphic in Canva or Illustrator than to build it on a web page. Then you can simply upload the graphic as an image to a website. If your graphic contains text, this isn’t a good idea. Screen readers can’t see that text (although alt tags can help) and it won’t respond to someones default text size settings in their browser.

6. Add an Accessibility Statement

I’ll add one more item to the list. Tell people what you’ve done by adding an accessibility statement. It will tell people you take accessibility seriously, and provide instructions for what they should do if they have trouble with your website. The same organization that puts out the accessibility checklist has a helpful accessibility statement generator.

Look at the Complete Checklist

These items are just the start. Be sure to check the complete list (known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG). WCAG is not an official government list, but agencies have decided to make it the default standard for meeting the requirements of the various sections of the Rehabilitations Act of 1973  (the deadline is for Section 504 compliance) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Can WordPress Plugins Make My Website Accessible?

Most of the website we build are WordPress sites. Dozens of WordPress plugins claim to make your website accessible, but if you read the fine print, what they can do is limited and none will claim to make your website completely compliant with WCAG.

The plugin WP Accessibility is refreshingly upfront about its limitations. It doesn’t claim to make your site accessible, but it does solve some key problems and the price is right: it’s free.

The plugin can take care of some common problems on WordPress sites, such as making it possible for users to skip the navigation at the top of the page, so they don’t have to listen to their screen reader reading out the menu every time they get to a new page. And it includes a widget that allows site visitors to make your website higher contrast or increase the text size.

Some plugins offer more functionality, such as using AI to add alt tags. These can range in price from a few dollars a month to hundreds of dollars per month, depending on functionality and the amount of traffic to your site. At least one stands behind its product with a pledge to pay $15,000 to $20,000 if you lose a lawsuit after setting up their plugin on your site. But even the priciest plugins won’t solve problems like adding captions and descriptive audio to video content.

How LGX can help

Testing

If you’re not sure how to make the changes above and you have a WordPress site, we can help.

We’ll start by running a scan on your site to identify key issues.

Automated scans will miss a lot. For example, they don’t notice if videos on your site are properly captioned or have audio description tracks. And they might not reveal whether your site can be navigated with the help of a screen reader. The next step is to manually test the site using a screen reader.

Fixing Problems

What it takes to fix problems will vary depending on what the testing finds and the details of how your site is built. We can help discuss your options, which will probably include a combination of plugins and manual fixes.

What if you don’t have time to fix everything?

It’s better to do something than nothing.

Take what action you can and include an accessibility statement that describes what you’ve done and what you are working on, to indicate a good-faith effort.