New York Executive Law Section 170-F offers one of the strictest protections for individuals with disabilities. It ensures that all state-owned and operated businesses adhere to accessibility standards in their construction and renovation projects throughout the state, ensuring individuals with disabilities have full and equal participation in digital and physical spaces.
Keep reading to learn more about New York Executive Law Section 170-F, including what it is, the benefits of website accessibility, and how you can increase website accessibility compliance with helpful tools like the Accessibly widget, one of the web’s leading digital accessibility tools.
Overview of New York Executive Law Section 170-F
New York Executive Law Section 170-F is one of the most important pieces of legislation mandating ethics in government operations within the state by enforcing key provisions, such as closing conflicts of interest and personal financial interests and requiring ethics training for all New York public officers.
For example, for eligible New York-based contractors and vendors looking to secure a lucrative contract, disclosures must be made if that contractor has a financial stake in a company.
Another important aspect of New York Executive Law Section 170-F is its relationship to web accessibility. Several provisions require anyone managing public accommodations to ensure accessible websites and digital services, equipping them with features like keyboard navigation, video captioning, and transcripts for the deaf and hard of hearing.
New York Executive Law Section 170-F also enforces mandates related to accessible physical locations, with all businesses in public facilities required to address the needs of individuals with disabilities. Whether it’s digital Braille displays for bus stops, assistive learning systems, or similar, a full and concerted effort must be made to ensure equal access and participation for individuals with disabilities.
In addition to New York Executive Law Section 170-F, another important asset relates to emergency communication and enforcement/compliance. All in-state emergency communications must be presented in different formats to accommodate the visually, cognitively, mobility, and hearing-impaired.
Lastly, Section 170-F has strict rules regarding enforcement and compliance, with regularly required accessibility audits and ongoing staff training to ensure that individuals with disabilities are fully integrated into New York State websites, digital services, and public accommodations.
In short, New York Executive Law Section 170-F is one of the most critical pieces of legislation in New York. Its goal is to integrate individuals with disabilities into the larger public sphere, allowing them full access to everything from transportation services to audio-based emergency alerts. This goal is to create a truly inclusive environment for all.
Why Website Accessibility?
Here are four significant benefits of website accessibility:
Expanded Reach
With roughly 15% of the world experiencing a partial or full disability, meeting website accessibility standards significantly improves bounce rates, average time on site, and other essential KPIs determining website health. Additionally, you may experience fewer support tickets and navigation issues on your website.
Expanding your audience reach offers a more inclusive user experience for all visitors, including individuals with disabilities. Providing a supportive online environment for individuals with disabilities definitely has no shortage of benefits.
Improved SEO and UI
One often overlooked benefit of adhering to web accessibility standards is the potential for SEO improvement. By ensuring properly formatted semantic HTML, applying descriptive headings, and indexing your content, you can improve your SEO. Your website might even make it to the first page of search engines. Naturally, this also extends to an enhanced user experience, especially with enhancements like implementing keyboard navigation that allows all website navigation to be performed with a keyboard and not only a mouse (a boon for people with limited dexterity).
Save Money
Adhering to the Americans with Disabilities Act helps businesses and organizations lower the likelihood of lawsuits filed by advocacy groups or nonprofits interested in advancing the interests of individuals with disabilities. Even a single lawsuit could cause negative brand perception as being non-inclusive.
Legal Compliance
Arguably, a top reason for meeting website accessibility is an ongoing need for legal compliance. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires all businesses to work towards total inclusivity via accessible websites for individuals with disabilities. There have been many reported cases of giant retailers squaring off against nonprofits and advocacy groups due to non-accessibility, resulting in awarded damages and other payouts.
To stay on top of legal compliance, we encourage you to refer to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and apply them to your website, ensuring that all of its elements are usable by the mobility, cognitively, hard of hearing, and visually impaired.
Steps to Increase Website Accessibility Compliance
If you want your website to comply with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) accessibility standards, we encourage you to follow the steps below:
Broaden Understanding
The first step towards website accessibility compliance is to understand what it is in the first place.
Check the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, which are a series of internationally recognized standards that offer best practices and guidance on how to equip websites, mobile applications, and physical spaces with accessibility-friendly features like descriptive alternative text, highlighted links, and large cursors and icons for visual, mobility, cognitively, and hard of hearing individuals to digest information better.
Perform an Accessibility Audit
Once you have familiarized yourself with WCAG, perform a manual or automated accessibility audit on your website. Tools like Axe do an excellent job of scanning websites and reporting accessibility issues, from how your interactive elements are presented to improperly formatted semantic HTML.
However, we highly recommend that contractors and vendors use a combination of automated and manual testing. Manual testing is an excellent choice if you continually experience complex issues. In this case, one popular go-to strategy is to conduct focus groups with users with disabilities, testing websites and mobile applications to ensure that they meet the accessibility requirements.
You may also opt for a detailed expert reviewer who can provide actionable recommendations and offer best practices on iterative testing and validation.
Correct the Issues
The next step towards website accessibility is correcting the issues. One method is to use a digital accessibility tool like Accessibly. Working as a website overlay, it can be integrated into any website using custom code or fit via integration with select e-commerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. It takes less than a minute to install.
Remember, Accessibly is not a guarantee to contractors and vendors that your website will meet ADA and compliance with WCAG. Instead, it helps increase compliance. We highly recommend achieving at least WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance, which offers sufficient coverage of accessibility needs for a good percentage of the disabled population. Many countries, including the United States and countries in the European Union, have already adopted it as a standard for public sector websites like transportation services.
A Word on PDFs
Pay attention to PDFs. PDFs have long been prone to accessibility issues. Three of our favorite PDF accessibility checkers are Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, PAVE PDF Accessibility Checker, and the EqualWeb PDF Accessibility Checker. All do an exceptional job fixing tagging problems and other issues not meeting WCAG 2.1 Level AA and Section 508 standards.
Although Accessibly is not an end-all-be-all solution for meeting complete accessibility standards, it does help increase ADA and WCAG compliance, help business owners and organizations avoid accessibility-related lawsuits, and prevent damage to brand reputation.
How Accessibly Can Help with Increasing Compliance
Accessibly is a full-fledged accessibility widget that allows business owners to incorporate accessibility features into their websites.
Features include but are not limited to alternative text for images, improved keyboard accessibility, enhanced text, background contrast options, transcripts, larger cursors, additional reading lines, and much more.
One of the best things about the Accessibly app is that it can be integrated into any website using custom code. It also has native integrations with four platforms: Shopify, WooCommerce, Elementor, and WordPress. Monthly pricing is as low as $20 for Shopify and $25 on all other platforms.
Additionally, the Accessibly web accessibility widget is always focused on introducing new features to the widget. From simplified designs to new accessibility features, all of the latest ADA and WCAG compliance measures are covered.If you need more time to commit to a monthly subscription, you can enjoy a free 7-day trial. It only takes less than five minutes to get started. Increase ADA and WCAG compliance with the Accessibly widget today!
