Summary
In the second year of the Assessment and 26 years since the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was amended to include Section 508, governmentwide Section 508 conformance remains low and without improvement in FY24. There remains significant variation in conformance across government, with some respondents reporting full conformance of ICT, while others report little to no conformance. Although we have not yet observed a governmentwide improvement in ICT conformance, the data indicates there have been investments in Section 508 programs over the past year with some entities noting this was spurred by the FY23 Assessment or OMB’s M-24-08. Entities acknowledged gaps that were apparent in the FY23 Assessment and reported using the Assessment and M-24-08 as a roadmap for improvement. More conformant ICT governmentwide will result as agencies:
-
Continued investments in a Section 508 program.
-
Develop sufficient digital accessibility policies, processes and procedures.
-
Define roles and responsibilities for accountability of digital accessibility.
The FY24 Assessment expanded the breadth and depth of reporting entities this year to include 15 new respondents. The following findings are based on self-reported data from 245 reporting entities related to information and activities between June 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024.1 Similar to last year, there was no independent data verification or testing to assess the accuracy of entity submissions.
Please see the Methods section for a comprehensive explanation of data validation flags and calculations used to ascertain each reporting entity’s maturity and conformance. The Observations and Acknowledgements section addresses misunderstandings of terminology, discrepancies in results, and issues flagged during data validation. Not all criteria were statistically significant for this analysis, thus the Findings - LINK NEEDED section does not summarize every data point.2 However, all response data can be accessed publicly in Assessment Data and Downloads.
The following sections assess conformance outcomes and maturity inputs to comprehensively evaluate governmentwide Section 508 compliance, identify continued opportunities for improvement, and gain a clearer understanding of where deficiencies still exist in digital accessibility efforts and their causes. On average, governmentwide maturity slightly improved but remains moderate at 2.37 on a 5-point scale compared to 2.17 in FY23. On average, governmentwide conformance did not improve and remains low at 1.74 on a 5-point scale (compared to 1.79 in FY23). Results, analysis, and specific figures for these outcomes are shown below.
Overall, across the federal government, the average digital accessibility conformance of ICT did not improve while the maturity of digital accessibility-related efforts improved slightly from FY23 to FY24.
Governmentwide Conformance at a Glance
What improved:
Top Viewed ICT Results: Slightly more reporting entities submitted results this year for top viewed internet web pages, electronic documents, and videos and the percentage of conformance of those top viewed ICT slightly improved.
What declined:
C-Index Change YoY
Conformance from 1.79 down to 1.74
Testing Coverage: Fewer respondents conducted web testing as part of regular business functions, with only 70% assessing public internet websites (down from 78%), covering 41% of total public pages versus 52% previously. Intranet web page testing also declined, with only 41% of entities testing 8% of total intranet pages, down from 26% of total intranet pages last year.
Intranet Conformance Declined: While conformance rates for public web pages held steady around 62%, intranet conformance declined from 59% to 52%. Top viewed intranet web page conformance also declined, from 25% of pages reported as fully conformant in FY23 to 20% reported in FY24.
Potential Drivers:
Overall Conformance of the Federal Government: The average governmentwide conformance score fell slightly from 1.79 in FY23 to 1.74, indicating a decrease in compliance across public facing and internal ICT.
Insufficient Testing Resources: Many entities continue to report insufficient resources to test top viewed or widely used ICT, resulting in limited to no insight into the accessibility of their ICT inventory.
Shift in Testing Focus: As entities rely more on automated testing, comprehensive manual checks – which are necessary for assessing full conformance – have likely been deprioritized, affecting overall accessibility insights. Reporting entities may not have staff who are fully trained or capable of conducting manual testing across all applicable Section 508 standards.
Governmentwide Maturity at a Glance
What improved:
Governmentwide Maturity: Average maturity increased from 2.17 to 2.37, leading to a 9% YOY increase.M-Index Change YoY
Maturity from 2.17 down to 2.37
Maturity Dimensions: IT Accessibility Program Office; Communications; Content Creation; Human Capital, Culture, and Leadership; Testing and Validation; Acquisition and Procurement; and Training all increased. Training had the highest YOY increase at 31%, with a shift from 1.57 out of five in FY23 to 2.06 in FY24.
What Declined:
Maturity Dimensions: Policies, Procedures, and Practices and Technology Lifecycle Activities both declined slightly with a decrease of 7% YOY.
Potential Drivers:
Increased Investment: Increase in maturity likely reflects increased investment inSection 508 program activities, including creating policies, requiring regular accessibility training, creating accessibility statements and establishing feedback mechanisms. Numerous questions saw improvement as reporting entities developed and refined their accessibility capabilities.
Additional Resources and Time: The number of program managers and the amount of time spent on digital accessibility and the Section 508 program both increased. This may have allowed reporting entities to allocate more time to program development, resulting in better maturity outcomes.
Footnotes
- Reporting entity denotes a respondent to the Assessment. This report uses the term “reporting entity” rather than “agency” or “component” as traditionally defined because reporting entity Section 508 programs may be organized or function outside of these traditional definitions. Fifteen submissions were from entities that did not submit data in FY23, while 13 entities restructured how they submitted as a reporting entity and thus did not have a submission for FY24. Six other entities who submitted in FY23 did not submit data in FY24 for unknown reasons. Please see Observations for additional details. ↩
- To determine statistical significance of YOY comparisons, GSA used the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test (WSRT) for non-normal data and used the paired t-test (PTT) for the rare cases of normally distributed paired samples. In both tests, probability values (p-values) help determine whether the observed differences are likely due to chance. Asterisks indicate the level of statistical significance and provide a quick reference to the strength of YOY findings across the report. For further details, refer to Pre-Post Analysis in the Methods section. ↩
Reviewed/Updated: December 2024
