Accessibility help for local government
Make sure every resident can use your website.
We help cities, counties, districts, and agencies make their websites work for every resident — including the ones using a screen reader, a keyboard, or a phone with the text turned way up. WCAG 2.1 AA is the floor, not the goal.
The Snapshot is a free, instant automated scan — a floor, not a verdict. When you're ready for a real test, book a Title II Website Readiness Check.
Deadline notice
The deadline moved back. The requirement didn't.
Counting down to April 26, 2027 — or April 26, 2028 if you serve fewer than 50,000 people or you're a special district.
Read the Title II deadline guide (opens in a new tab)In April 2026 the Department of Justice pushed the ADA Title II web deadlines back one year. If you serve 50,000 people or more, your date is April 26, 2027. If you serve fewer, or you're a special district, it's April 26, 2028. Nothing else moved. The standard is still WCAG 2.1 Level AA, and DOJ says it plans to enforce on the new dates.
How long remediation takes depends on the size and condition of your site. What's predictable is everything around it: budgeting, procurement, vendor coordination, and scheduling all need lead time you can't compress. Use the extra year to get the work funded and under contract, not to wait.
Why so many government sites still fail the people who need them most
Your scan says "pass." The resident still gives up and calls the front desk.
Automated tools detect only a subset of WCAG failures; many success criteria require human judgment or hands-on testing. No tool can tell you whether a blind resident can finish your permit application. So we sit down and try to finish it, the way they would.
Independent testing catches what internal QA may miss.
Platform reports and in-house checks are useful, and they have blind spots. We're platform-independent — we don't sell a website platform — so we can test candidly and work alongside your existing vendor on the fixes.
A widget is not a remediation.
The FTC required accessiBe to pay $1 million to settle allegations that it misrepresented what its automated product could do. A line of JavaScript can't fix a broken form. We fix the form.
The pathway, from free scan to lasting fix
See what each one includesBetter Pixels helps small governments find, prioritize, and fix the accessibility barriers keeping residents from essential online services — and leaves behind the records and processes your staff need to keep the work moving. An assessment is where the work starts, not what you're left with.
01
Free Accessibility Snapshot
An automated scan of your site, returned quickly at no cost. A starting point — not an audit, and not proof of compliance.
02
Title II Website Readiness Check
A deliberately narrow human evaluation of one resident workflow, plus representative automated scanning. You get prioritized findings and recommended next steps.
03
Site-wide Accessibility Assessment
The full WCAG 2.1 AA audit: automated scanning across page types plus hands-on keyboard and screen-reader testing of the tasks residents use most.
04
Accessibility Remediation
We fix the site itself: templates, forms, menus, color contrast, PDFs, and video. We can implement the fixes or work with your CMS or vendor team.
05
Ongoing Accessibility Assurance
Sites slip the minute staff start posting agendas again. Recurring checks, a hands-on periodic review, editor training, and an accessibility statement that stays current.
Rebuilding a site is the exception, not a step on this path. We recommend it only when a site is obsolete enough that it can't be responsibly or economically remediated.
We build the way federal agencies build
We build on the U.S. Web Design System, the same design system federal agencies use to make mobile-friendly government websites. Its buttons, forms, and menus give you an accessibility-informed foundation, designed against Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 AA and refined through work on things that matter — like filing taxes or applying for benefits. A foundation is not a guarantee: every implementation still needs automated, manual, and real-user testing. What you get is the consistency and trust of a system built for public service, not a one-off product that locks you in.
- An accessibility-informed foundation
- Written for residents, not lawyers
- Free and open source
- Nothing ties you to us
Twenty years of this work, most of it in the public sector
Better Pixels was started by a designer with twenty years of practice, including Section 508 and accessibility work for Medicare.gov, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Federal Aviation Administration. A town of 12,000 gets that same standard of work.
- Medicare.gov
- U.S. Department of Justice
- Federal Aviation Administration
Past project experience. Listed for background only; no endorsement implied.
Start free, then get a real test
Free Accessibility Snapshot. Send us your web address and we'll run an automated scan of your site and send back what it found. It's instant, it's free, and it's a floor, not a verdict — automated scans catch only a portion of accessibility problems. It isn't an audit, and it doesn't prove compliance.
Title II Website Readiness Check. A deliberately narrow human evaluation: a person tries one core resident workflow on your site end to end, alongside representative automated scanning. Within three business days you'll get a plain-English report with:
- Representative WCAG 2.1 AA scanning of important pages
- One real task tried start to finish — paying a utility bill, applying for a permit, finding a meeting agenda — using only a keyboard and a screen reader
- Prioritized findings in plain English, worst first, each with the recommended fix
- What the tested workflow reveals about your highest-priority accessibility risks, and the next assessment or remediation steps
A scan shows you a score; a human shows you where residents actually get stuck. One workflow won't establish site-wide compliance — for that, the Site-wide Accessibility Assessment is the next step. No sales call, no widget to buy. If your site is in decent shape, we'll say so and leave you alone.
Not the right time for a full audit?
Read The Title II Deadline Guide for Small Governments. What the DOJ rule actually requires, what it doesn't, and a 12-month plan you can run with one person.
Your website should work for every resident who needs it.
Start free and find out where your site actually stands.