Digital accessibility means designing and developing websites, applications, documents, and other digital content so that people with disabilities can use them effectively.

An accessible digital experience allows individuals to perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with online content—regardless of ability. This includes people who use assistive technologies such as screen readers, voice recognition software, screen magnifiers, alternative keyboards, or captioning.

Digital accessibility ensures equal access to information and services for all.

How this affects vendors

If you sell technology products or services to the State of Colorado, you must follow these rules. You need to be able to demonstrate that your products are accessible to people with disabilities.
Technology products include:

On this page

How this affects vendors

Required documentation

Partial compliance

State and federal accessibility laws

Definitions to know

Additional resources

  • Software, applications, and websites
  • Multimedia content like images, video and audio
  • Documents (e.g., Google formats, PDF, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, etc.)
  • Computers and peripheral equipment
  • Information kiosks and transaction machines
  • Telecommunications equipment
  • Customer premises equipment

Required documentation

To show that your products are accessible, you must provide documentation to El Paso County. This includes:

  • An Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR). This is a report that shows how your product meets accessibility standards. You can use a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template or VPAT (ITIC.org) to create this report.
  • A description of the tools and methods you used to test your product for accessibility.
  • A list of any accessibility issues you found, and a plan for fixing them.
  • If you hired a third-party company to test your product, you must provide their report.
  • Information about how your company is committed to accessibility.

Partial compliance

We understand it takes time to make products fully accessible. If your product isn’t fully compliant, you can still work with El Paso County. You’ll need to show that you’re committed to making your product accessible and have a plan for fixing any issues.

My organization only provides study's and reports, how is organization impacted?

Please ensure your document is compliant by incorporating accessibility features during its creation. Below is helpful information on how to make your information accessible.

Microsoft Office

Adobe

State and Federal accessibility laws

Colorado accessibility law

In June 2021, Colorado passed a law requiring that all digital government information and technology be accessible to people with disabilities. This applies to all state and local government entities.

Colorado accessibility rules and standards

The law is supported by rules and technical standards. These explain how government entities can comply with the law. For example, websites and apps must meet specific requirements, like meeting color contrast compliance and providing text alternatives for images. The rules apply to both public external-facing and internal-facing information and communication technology (ICT) that is procured, developed, maintained, or used by state and local government entities.

The technical standard includes the following elements:

Federal accessibility law

The Department of Justice (DOJ) published the final rule in the Federal Register, notating an update to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Subpart H—Web and Mobile Accessibility.

The technical standard includes the following elements:

Definitions To Know

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) covers a wide range of recommendations for making web content more accessible. Following these guidelines will make content more accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities and address accessibility of web content, including websites, applications, documents, etc., on desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices. The State of Colorado is required to follow the current release version of the WCAG guidelines at both levels A and AA.

A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) is used to identify whether a product is WCAG compliant for every success criteria element of the guidelines. It uses a table structure that shows the linked success criteria, whether the product passes, partially passes, or fails each success criteria, and a notes column to incur details on what might be failing (or partially failing) and sometimes a timeline or details for when the issue will be fixed.

House Bill 21-1110 requires all Colorado government entities to be compliant with OIT’s accessibility standards by July 1, 2024. The bill also states that a statutory fine not to exceed three thousand five hundred dollars would be payable to each plaintiff for each violation.

Senate Bill 23-244 allows OIT to promulgate, or create, rules around accessibility. These rules can include a number of things that help clarify the original HB21-1110 statute.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, State and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications. It also applies to digital technology.

  • ICT:

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is defined as information technology and other equipment, systems, technologies, or processes, for which the principal function is the creation, manipulation, storage, display, receipt, or transmission of electronic data and information, as well as any associated content.

Additional resources