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Board of Regents accessibility workshop outlines April 24, 2026 WCAG 2.1 AA deadline and practical steps for compliance
Summary
At a Board of Regents workshop, the agency’s Web Accessibility Coordinator said Louisiana state, local and higher-education websites must meet WCAG 2.1 AA by April 24, 2026 and walked staff through steps—alt text, captions, PDF tagging, color contrast and keyboard navigation—to reduce legal risk and improve access.
Chris Yandle, Ph.D., APR, the Board of Regents’ Web Accessibility Coordinator and a communications officer, told staff on a workshop call that “on April 24th, 2026 all Louisiana state and local governments and higher ed institutions have to conform to the WCAG 2.1 level AA accessibility” standard.
Why it matters: Yandle said the rule covers websites and mobile apps and addresses issues such as color contrast, readable font sizes, image alt text and properly tagged PDFs. He warned that inaccessible digital content can prompt lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act but added that “nobody's gonna be 100% accessible digitally,” and that agencies should document steady progress toward fixes to show good faith to the state ADA coordinator.
Practical steps and examples: Yandle walked attendees through common barriers and quick fixes. He advised adding meaningful alt text to images (not just technical labels), avoiding images of text for data tables, tagging PDFs with a document title and language, and ensuring keyboard-only operability for navigation. Using agency color samples, he illustrated contrast ratios and said the WCAG threshold is 4.5:1 for readable small text; the Regents’ blue-on-white met the threshold while the white-on-orange accent failed for small text.
Yandle also described operational steps the agency has adopted: assigned division contacts, a weekly back-end spreadsheet review to log and fix accessibility issues, and a public-facing email address to report problems. He said the agency reduced roughly 4,000 web pages to fewer than 300 during a redesign to simplify content and improve readability, and that accessible templates for Word, PowerPoint and Excel are available.
Training and tool use: Demonstrating Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker, Yandle showed how to add alt text, mark decorative images, apply heading styles in Word, use table headers, avoid merged cells in Excel, and check reading order in PowerPoint. He said YouTube auto-captions are often usable for uploaded board meetings but cautioned that social platforms generally require hand-entered captions and alt text.
Staff questions and clarifications: Christine Norton asked whether routine memos and emails must meet WCAG standards; Yandle replied that internal emails and memos do not need to meet the standard, while digital reports and materials posted to the website do. He committed to circulating the webinar recording, the slide deck, handouts and a checklist to staff after the session.
Next steps: Yandle said the agency submitted its web policies and guidelines to the state ADA coordinator the morning of the workshop and that some sites are already compliant while others are on a redesign timeline. He closed by inviting follow-up questions and requesting participants complete a post-workshop survey.
