We do. Accessibility is essential in the arts sector, and we build sites with best-practice accessibility standards to ensure your content is inclusive and usable for as many people as possible.
This is the first thing to establish, because arts organizations sit on both sides of a legal line.
Municipally operated museums and arts venues are public entities under Title II of the ADA. The Department of Justice finalized a rule in April 2024 setting WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the standard. Entities serving populations of 50,000 or more had a compliance date of April 24, 2026. Smaller public entities have until April 26, 2027.
Private nonprofit museums and arts organizations are generally covered under Title III as places of public accommodation. Title III does not specify a technical standard the way the new Title II rule does, but WCAG 2.1 AA has become the practical benchmark courts and settlements reference.
The distinction matters for obligation, not for approach. We build to the same standard either way.
Keyboard operability throughout, including ticketing and donation flows. Sufficient color contrast. Text alternatives for images. Captions for video and transcripts for audio. Logical heading structure and landmark regions. Visible focus indicators. Forms with properly associated labels and clear error messaging. Content that reflows without horizontal scrolling at high zoom.
WCAG 2.2, published in 2023, adds requirements around focus appearance, dragging movements, and accessible authentication. Designing to 2.2 gives margin above the current legal floor, which we generally recommend.
Ticketing and booking flows. These are frequently third-party embeds, and they are the single most common accessibility gap. A fully accessible site with an inaccessible checkout is an inaccessible site. Vendor accessibility should be part of platform selection.
Collection and exhibition imagery. Alt text for artworks is genuinely difficult, because a functional description and an interpretive one are different things. Institutions with large digitized collections need a workable policy rather than a heroic one-time effort.
Media without captions. Performance clips, artist interviews, and audio guides. Retrofitting a back catalog is a real project, so a going-forward policy plus a prioritized backlog is usually the realistic path.
PDFs. Programs, newsletters, and annual reports posted as untagged PDFs are effectively invisible to screen readers.
Accessibility gets designed in rather than audited afterward. Contrast, focus states, heading hierarchy, and form patterns are decisions made during design, and fixing them later means redoing work.
We test with keyboard navigation and screen readers rather than relying only on automated scanning. Automated tools reliably catch a minority of real issues, and the ones they miss tend to be the ones that actually block people.
We also recommend publishing an accessibility statement describing your conformance level, known gaps, and how someone can report a barrier. That is both a good-faith signal and genuinely useful to visitors.
We build to recognized standards and test rigorously. We are not accessibility auditors or lawyers, and organizations with real legal exposure should pair our work with a formal audit and appropriate counsel.
For related reading see exhibition and event functionality, or explore our accessible museum website design.
