Prioritize, Test, Remediate

The "Prioritize, Test, and Remediate" criteria of the plan ensures that your agency conducts testing of all digital products and that plans are developed to address accessibility issues once identified. Follow these steps to determine the scope, level of effort, and estimated cost of evaluation and remediation.

Prioritization and Accommodations

The first step to prioritizing your digital assets is to create an inventory. Be sure to only include websites and applications that your organization manages. For more information on what you should inventory, review the FAQ: HB21-1110 Colorado Laws For Persons With Disabilities.

Next, prioritize according to the guidelines below in order to provide documentation to demonstrate what accessibility work can be done within the agency’s capacity by July 1, 2024.

Ask these three questions first:

After asking the above questions, and the digital product requires testing and remediation, plot out where it lands within the following groups:

The groups are based on community impact and strategic Impact. 

Groups

Accommodations

Accommodations are a reactive response to removing barriers caused by inaccessible design enabling a person with a disability to participate in a service or employment opportunity. 

Accommodations may mean that information has to be maintained in multiple places and formats, or that an in-person service can’t be closed because an online service cannot be accessed by all those that need it. Accommodations are substitutes for accessibility or disclaimers. 

If it is determined that testing and remediation can't happen before the July 1, 2024 deadline, then accommodations must be put in place to support those people with disabilities in the event that they are not able to access the service.

For services with untested or known accessibility issues, an Equally Effective Alternate Access Plan (EEAAP) may be developed to describe how those affected by the inaccessible product can continue to participate in professional, academic, or other activities.

Learn more about how to develop and EEAAP, The University of Iowa

Manual Testing

We can’t check all accessibility using a tool alone. Human judgment is required because automated tools may give incomplete and inaccurate results. Manual testing teams use a variety of tools—such as screen readers, accessibility evaluators and hands-on keyboard testing—to assess state-developed and supported applications against state and federal standards for accessibility. 

Manual testing can be applied to websites and applications already in production but can also provide accessibility support while they are in the development stages. In this case, early and frequent testing can provide the development team with recommendations and save you time and money in the long run.

Who Are the Enterprise Agreement Accessibility Vendors?


OIT has enterprise agreements with five vetted and approved accessibility testing vendors:

You can engage one of the state's enterprise agreement accessibility vendors for accessibility testing of your websites, applications, documents or other digital products. Read more about the vendors in our OIT Approved Enterprise Agreements sheet, the OIT Enterprise Vendor Pricing and Services List and learn How To Use OIT’s Enterprise Agreement Accessibility Vendors.

For additional guidance on estimating manual testing budgets, visit our Budget page.

For OIT's in-house testing services please reach out to your agency's IT Director. 

If you need additional accessibility-related services please reach out to the vendors. They can provide a variety of accessibility services such as auditing, manual testing, remediation, training, and multimedia.

What requirements should I include?

When you are ready to work with a testing vendor, think about your timelines, have a list of products you need tested, and any security requirements that apply to your situation. Please reach out to your Accessibility Consultant as they can also assist you in this effort.

To assist you in developing a statement of work for your testing project you can use our Accessibility Services Statement of Work template. Please feel free to work with your accessibility consultant for guidance on creating your statement of work.

Use these resources when engaging with vendors for website platform or content services:

Automated Testing and Tools

Automated testing tools are a great way to do a high-level "pulse check" of the accessibility of your website. They won't catch all issues, in fact only about 20-30% on average, but can give you a general idea of where your most common and noticeable issues lie within your website's platform and content.

Websites Testing 

Agencies are accountable for the accessibility of each website they manage, including colorado.gov websites.

Although all colorado.gov websites will be assessed by Siteimprove, they still require manual testing.  Manual testing of each agency's website is the responsibility of the agency. 

Siteimprove

Siteimprove is an enterprise accessibility and quality assurance tool to monitor and assist with finding and remediating website accessibility issues. The software helps to improve State website usability and accessibility by automating the process of finding errors and problems. 

Siteimprove can only scan websites (HTML) that do not contain PII, PHI or CJIS information. It cannot scan dynamic information provided by applications or APIs.

For more information about the benefits of Siteimprove and how to participate in using it, visit the Tools page of this site. 

Free Chrome Browser Extensions

Browser extensions are automated tools built into your browser that can help web content creators, quality assurance testers, and designers to check content directly within the browser by entering the website’s address to get it checked.

Other Automated Testing Tools

Additional testing tools are also available for reviewing and testing websites, applications, audio transcripts, and documents with some tools requiring more skills and training the others including

Check out our Tools page for information on all of our available automated testing tools and how to request them.

Remediation

OIT has identified five vendors that are listed in the OIT Enterprise Agreement List (Sheets). You can engage one of the state's enterprise agreement accessibility vendors for accessibility remediation of your website, application, document or other digital product. Learn How To Use OIT’s Enterprise Agreement Accessibility Vendors and which services are available from each vendor with the OIT Enterprise Vendor Pricing and Services List.

For remediation of OIT-developed applications, please reach out to your agency's IT Director. 

Website Remediation

Remediation of accessibility issues found on website platforms is the responsibility of the vendor. This includes Tyler Colorado who is responsible for fixing colorado.gov accessibility issues. OIT is working in partnership with state agencies, SIPA and Tyler Colorado for providing an accessible colorado.gov platform.

Remediation of all inaccessible content on the agency's websites is the responsibility of the agency.

When creating website content, the following resources can help to ensure it’s accessible:

Use these resources when engaging with vendors for remediation services: