Spring NEARC 2025

Maps can’t be accessible, can they? That’s been the thought for most of our collective GIS careers. A federal mandate (the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title II) in April 2024 changed that, by requiring that all governments ensure their digital content and services meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, also known as WCAG, by April 2026 (for large state/local governments). As we started to dig into what accessible interactive maps really meant, we discovered that we typically build for the 75% of people who define themselves as not having a disability. This made us wonder what types of experiences the 25% (people who do define themselves as having disabilities) had with our digital GIS products. Although this is a mandate, we’ve grown to understand map and GIS accessibility is so much more than a requirement. It’s also a responsibility to make our maps and applications available to anyone who wants and needs to use them. Today, we'll share our journey thus far on learning about accessibility and web maps. We’ll introduce you to the federal mandate and WCAG. We’ll share some basic precepts for thinking about accessibility in GIS. We’ll also review some of the basic strategies we use to ensure our web maps—the base of most digital GIS products—are accessible. We hope our story helps you feel confident to start your journey in GIS accessibility.