Web Accessibility · El Paso
ADA compliant websites, measured instead of promised.
Every site I build is verified against WCAG 2.1 Level AA — and I show you the numbers. If you already have a site, I can audit it and tell you exactly where it stands.
Text me · Mon–Fri 9AM–6PM MT · Hablamos Español
The deadline
For healthcare, this stopped being optional.
Under Section 504, healthcare providers who receive federal funding — which includes anyone billing Medicaid — must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA by May 11, 2027. Practices with fewer than 15 employees have until May 10, 2028. Source: HHS, 91 FR 25496.
That covers a lot of El Paso: family clinics, pediatric and therapy practices, dental offices seeing children on Medicaid, home health, behavioral health.
Everyone else has no date — and no exemption either. The ADA has been applied to websites through the courts for years, and it usually shows up as a demand letter rather than a lawsuit. A letter costs real money to make go away even when the claim is thin.
Who has a hard date
Providers receiving federal funding, 15+ employees
WCAG 2.1 AA by May 11, 2027
The same, under 15 employees
WCAG 2.1 AA by May 10, 2028
Everyone serving the public
No deadline. The ADA applies now, enforced through complaints and demand letters.
Sources
- HHS, Extension of Compliance Dates — 91 FR 25496 (May 11, 2026)
- 45 CFR § 84.84 — Requirements for web and mobile accessibility
The dates above were extended by one year in May 2026. The underlying obligation was not — it has been in effect since the 2024 rule took effect on July 8, 2024.
I build to the standard and show you the measurements. I'm not a lawyer and I don't certify legal compliance — for that, talk to counsel who handles ADA matters.
The part nobody talks about
Most agencies never check. The ones that do often check wrong.
Running an automated checker is easy. Running one that tells you the truth is not. Two examples from this very site — both of which reported a perfect score while something was actually broken.
Trap 1 — the invisible page
A clean report on a page nobody read.
This site fades sections in as you scroll. Until a section scrolls into view it sits at zero opacity — and accessibility checkers skip anything invisible.
So the homepage reported zero problems while seven of its seven sections were never examined at all. The fix is to run the audit with animations disabled. The report only means something once every section is actually on the page.
Trap 2 — the hover state
Passing at rest, failing under the cursor.
No automated tool checks hover states. It sees the button sitting still and nothing else.
When I computed the ratios by hand, the main button on this site was failing badly — and getting worse the moment you moused over it. It had been that way for months, on every call-to-action, and no tool had ever mentioned it. That's fixed now, and the numbers below are the result.
The method
What actually gets checked.
The audit script is part of the codebase, so this runs on every build instead of once at launch and never again.
Every page, not a sample.
Automated checks run against all 128 pages of this site, not the homepage and a hope. On a client build, that means every template and every route.
Three screen sizes.
390px, 412px, and 1440px. Layout changes what is actually in the DOM — a real contrast failure on this site only appeared at desktop width.
Contrast computed from the raw values.
Not eyeballed against a swatch. Ratios are calculated from the design tokens themselves, so the number is the number.
Hover and focus states, by hand.
No automated tool evaluates them. A button can pass at rest and fail the instant your cursor lands on it, and nothing will warn you.
Keyboard paths and focus order.
Every interactive element reachable by Tab, with a focus indicator you can actually see, in an order that matches the visual layout.
Forms that announce themselves.
Real labels, real error messages, and errors tied to their field so a screen reader says which one is wrong instead of just "invalid."
Evidence
Start by checking the person selling you accessibility.
It is a fair question to ask anyone who pitches you this, so here are my own numbers. Every page of this site, at three screen sizes, on the most recent build.
Ask whoever built your current site for theirs. Most cannot produce them, because most have never looked.
This site, audited August 2026
0
axe-core violations
WCAG 2.0 / 2.1 — Level A + AA
128 pages × 3 viewports = 384 page-checks, run with scroll animations disabled so nothing is skipped.
Contrast, computed by hand
Headings on background
15.37:1
Body text on background
7.84:1
Primary button, resting
8.19:1
Primary button, hovered
11.01:1
AA requires 4.5:1 for normal text.
Two ways in.
Already included
A new site, built to the standard
WCAG 2.1 AA is part of every build at no extra charge — it is not an upsell and never has been. Same pricing as everything else: $150/month, or $1,500 one-time.
Start a new siteFor an existing site
An audit of what you have now
You get a plain-language report: what fails, which rule it falls under, how serious it is, and what fixing it involves. It's yours to keep — hand it to whoever maintains your site, or have me do the work. Scope depends on how many pages you have, so send the URL and I'll quote it.
Request an auditQuestions about accessibility.
Does my El Paso business actually have to be ADA compliant online?
If you serve the public, assume yes. The ADA has been applied to websites through the courts for years, and most of the pressure arrives as a demand letter rather than a lawsuit. Healthcare providers who receive federal funding have something firmer: Section 504 sets an actual date of May 11, 2027 for WCAG 2.1 AA, or May 10, 2028 for practices with fewer than 15 employees. Those dates come from the HHS rule at 45 CFR 84.84, as extended in May 2026 (91 FR 25496).
What does WCAG 2.1 AA mean in plain terms?
It is the standard nearly every regulation points at. In practice it means text has enough contrast to read, everything works without a mouse, images have descriptions, forms have labels, and a screen reader can announce your page in an order that makes sense. AA is the level regulators cite — not the strictest tier, but the one that counts.
Can't I just install one of those accessibility overlay widgets?
I would not. Overlays sit on top of the problem instead of fixing it, they have been named in a large share of accessibility lawsuits rather than preventing them, and many screen reader users actively dislike them. The fix belongs in the markup, not in a script bolted on afterward.
How do I know you actually checked instead of just saying so?
Because I publish the numbers and the method, and you can re-run it. The audit script lives in the repository, so the same sweep can be run against your site at any point — including after a change you made yourself.
My current site was built by someone else. Can you audit it?
Yes, and that is usually the cheapest way to find out where you stand. An audit surfaces the accessibility problems and generally turns up everything else that is quietly broken too — dead pages, forms that silently discard submissions, wrong contact details. Send me the URL and I will tell you what it involves.
Do you offer this in Spanish?
Sí. Accessibility work and the audit report are both available in Spanish, and every site I build can ship bilingual. Language is its own accessibility barrier in El Paso, and it is one that most sites here never address.
Find out where your site actually stands.
Send me the URL. I'll run the same audit I run on my own site and tell you what it found — before you owe me anything.
Mon–Fri 9AM–6PM MT · Hablamos Español · (915) 247-2672