A foundational part of a well-managed online presence is ensuring that all users can access your information and services. For people who are blind or have low vision, this access often hinges on how well creators and developers understand and apply accessibility laws and standards.

Depending on the industry, you may have to comply with multiple accessibility standards, which can seem overwhelming. This guide provides a high-level overview of the U.S. accessibility laws and standards and how they translate into real access for blind and low-vision users.

Why digital accessibility matters

Imagine being unable to access a government website to renew your driver’s license, order online, or read the news because the platform wasn’t designed for you. Unfortunately, this is the reality for blind and low vision users when digital spaces are not accessible.

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 2.2 billion people worldwide have some form of vision impairment, millions of whom live in the United States. Beyond legal mandates tied to disability rights and reasonable accommodations, there are clear operational and public-service benefits to creating conformant, accessible digital experiences, and clear legal consequences when websites and services are inaccessible:

  • Expanded Market Reach: Tap into overlooked, underserved residents and constituents with immense purchasing power, including users with different types of disabilities.
  • Improved Usability for Everyone: Accessible design, clear structure, logical navigation, readable content, appropriate font choices, and clean, semantic HTML benefit all users.
  • Reduced Legal Risk: Aligning with federal accessibility requirements helps reduce exposure to costly complaints, settlements, and litigation under the ADA and related federal law.

In the U.S., digital accessibility is formalized through federal law, with specific statutes and standards governing how digital access must be provided.

What are the key U.S. accessibility laws?

In the U.S., two primary pieces of legislation form the bedrock of accessibility for blind and low-vision individuals: the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, as enforced by agencies such as the U.S. Access Board.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Enacted in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a landmark civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including employment, education, transportation, and public and private places open to the general public.

The ADA is a broad umbrella that covers both physical and digital spaces. While the original text didn’t explicitly mention the internet, both courts and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have consistently interpreted the ADA to apply to websites, mobile devices, and other digital platforms when they act as places of public accommodation or government services. For people who are blind or have low vision, the ADA ensures equitable access to public spaces and information:

  • Physical Access: Public places like stores, restaurants, hospitals, and government buildings must provide accessible features. This could include tactile signage, accessible routes, and assistance for those with visual impairments.
  • Information Access: Perhaps most crucially in the modern era, the ADA requires information provided by public entities to be accessible. This is where digital accessibility comes into play. If your website is the primary way citizens interact with a government agency, that website must be accessible to screen readers and other assistive technologies used by people with disabilities, including support for alternative formats.

The key takeaway for the ADA is if you offer goods or services to the public, or if you’re a state or local government entity, the ADA applies to you and your digital presence.

ADA Title II and Title III

While the ADA as a whole is crucial, Title II of the ADA specifically applies to state and local government entities, including city halls, public libraries, state universities, and other public institutions. For blind and low-vision individuals, Title II establishes a legal requirement for programmatic access and effective communication across digital services, not just physical buildings:

  • Programmatic Access: Not just the physical building, but the programs and services offered must be accessible. For example, if a city offers an online portal for paying utility bills, that portal must be screen reader compatible.
  • Effective Communication: Title II mandates that state and local governments must ensure effective communication with individuals with disabilities. For people who are blind or have low vision, this could mean providing information in accessible electronic formats, large print, or Braille, or offering qualified readers. It also means websites and digital content must be accessible.
  • Self-Evaluation and Transition Plans: Entities covered by Title II were required to conduct self-evaluations of their services, policies, and practices and make necessary modifications. If structural changes were needed to achieve program accessibility, they had to develop transition plans.

In 2024, the DoJ finalized ADA Title II regulations that explicitly require state and local government websites and mobile applications to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. This rule establishes a clear federal accessibility requirement for digital services and removes long-standing ambiguity around online compliance. The finalized rule also requires covered state and local governments to comply by April 24, 2026, with extended deadlines for smaller jurisdictions.

ADA Title III, which applies to private businesses open to the public, has been consistently interpreted by courts to require accessible websites and digital services when those platforms are essential to accessing goods or services. Many ADA Title III cases involving blind users center on screen reader failures, inaccessible forms, or keyboard barriers.

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act

While the ADA is broad, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is much more specific, focusing on information and communication technology (ICT) developed, procured, maintained, or used by the federal government, consistent with guidance from the U.S. Access Board. Section 508 was enacted to ensure that all of this digital infrastructure is accessible to federal employees and members of the public with disabilities.

Key aspects of Section 508 include:

  • Focus on ICT: It explicitly covers websites, software, hardware, video, multimedia, and electronic documents.
  • Government-centric: It primarily applies to federal agencies and any vendors or contractors doing business with them. If you’re a private company selling software to the Department of Defense, your software must be Section 508 compliant.
  • Specific Standards: Unlike the ADA, which is interpreted to apply to digital accessibility, Section 508 has very specific technical standards that agencies and their vendors must meet. These standards have evolved, with the latest update harmonizing significantly with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This harmonization is a benefit, as it means alignment with Section 508 will also improve your overall ADA compliance.
  • Procurement Power: A significant driver of Section 508 compliance is its procurement clause. Federal agencies are legally required to purchase ICT that is accessible, unless doing so would result in an undue burden or a fundamental alteration.

In essence, Section 508 acts as a specific, detailed rulebook for the federal government’s digital interactions.

The role of WCAG in accessibility compliance

WCAG is not a law; it’s a set of technical guidelines developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). As an internationally recognized benchmark for web accessibility, WCAG is widely referenced by legal bodies, including the Department of Justice, as the de facto standard for ADA compliance and is directly incorporated into Section 508.

At the heart of WCAG are four foundational principles, often remembered by the acronym POUR: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. Each principle is centered around concrete, testable success criteria to ensure that web content is accessible to people with disabilities:

  1. Perceivable: Can users perceive the information presented?
  2. Operable: Can users interact with the interface and navigate the content?
  3. Understandable: Can users understand the information and the user interface?
  4. Robust: Can the content be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies?

WCAG offers different levels of conformance, allowing organizations to set goals based on their resources and legal obligations. Levels A, AA, and AAA each represent a higher degree of accessibility.

  • Level A: This is the lowest level of conformance. It addresses the most fundamental and critical accessibility barriers.
  • Level AA: Level AA conformance strikes a good balance between achieving significant accessibility for the widest range of users and being technically feasible for most organizations to implement. It includes all Level A criteria plus additional guidelines that address common and significant barriers, often without requiring fundamental changes to content or design.
  • Level AAA: While aspirational, AAA is often neither realistic nor required for entire websites or applications. Many organizations aim for AAA for specific, critical components, such as accessibility statements or help sections, but stick to AA for broader content.

WCAG 2.1 Level AA remains the version most directly referenced in U.S. accessibility enforcement, including Section 508 and the ADA Title II rule. WCAG 2.2 builds on 2.1 by adding success criteria that improve usability for users with cognitive and motor disabilities, without changing existing requirements that affect blind and low-vision access.

How compliance translates into access for blind and low vision users

U.S. accessibility laws define legal requirements, but they do not prescribe specific technologies. Instead, compliance is evaluated based on whether users can independently access digital information and services, including content delivered in accessible formats and alternative formats.

For blind and low-vision users, that access is delivered through assistive technology (AT). To meet the needs of a diverse population, AT isn’t one-size-fits-all; each tool has unique features, with some overlap, allowing users to choose the tools that fit the level of vision loss they are currently experiencing.

Screen readers enable blind users to navigate digital content by converting on-screen information into speech or Braille. If websites are not labeled or structured correctly, screen readers cannot interpret them, effectively denying access and violating accessibility standards.

Low vision users may choose to use their remaining vision and rely on screen magnification software rather than a screen reader. For these users, content must remain readable and functional when enlarged or visually adapted. If layouts break, text loses clarity, or information is conveyed only through color or visual cues, users may be unable to complete tasks independently.

Keyboard navigation underpins both screen readers and magnification tools. When users cannot navigate or operate content using a keyboard alone, they lose access to core functionality. Because of this dependency, keyboard barriers frequently appear in both ADA and Section 508 enforcement actions.

Together, screen reader compatibility, visual adaptability, and keyboard access form the functional baseline for equal access. If any of these fail, blind and low vision users are unable to complete tasks and access information independently—placing organizations out of alignment with accessibility requirements and disability rights protections under federal law.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Even well-intentioned organizations can make mistakes on the path to accessibility. Awareness of common missteps can save time and resources.

Assuming visual impairment is a monolith

One mistake is treating blindness or low vision as a single, uniform condition. There is no set path to vision loss, and users rely on different AT and strategies. Guidelines like WCAG help address a broad spectrum of disabilities, enabling organizations to create digital experiences optimized for more users.

Over-reliance on automated testing tools

Automated accessibility checkers are fantastic for quickly catching obvious errors. However, they cannot evaluate context, meaning, or usability. Manual testing with AT is essential to understand how real users experience digital content. The end goal is to focus on why an accessibility gap creates a barrier for users, not just that a tool flagged it.

Neglecting user testing with disabled users

Testing with blind and low-vision users is one of the most effective ways to uncover accessibility gaps that are not obvious during design or development. From a legal perspective, enforcement actions increasingly focus on whether users can independently complete tasks. Digital experiences that are technically compliant but unusable with screen readers have repeatedly been cited in ADA complaints and settlements.

Building accessibility in, not on

Finally, many organizations treat accessibility as something to retrofit after a product launch. This approach is costly, inefficient, and risky. From a compliance perspective, U.S. accessibility laws focus on whether users have timely, effective access—not whether barriers were addressed only after complaints or legal action.

Turn accessibility compliance into confident, usable access

Navigating accessibility laws and standards doesn’t have to be overly complex. Having the right partner can streamline the accessibility implementation process, turning compliance from a challenging regulatory landscape into a scalable, sustainable program that grows with your organization.

Vispero has over 30 years of experience in assistive technology and accessibility implementation. We partner with organizations across industries to help them meet accessibility requirements, reduce risk, and deliver digital experiences that allow blind and low vision users live, work, and connect with confidence.

Interested in learning more? Reach out to one of our accessibility experts to learn how Vispero can help you strengthen and scale your accessibility program with confidence.