Investigating the Accessibility of State Government Web Sites in Maryland

All citizens have the right to access information from their government. At both the federal and state levels in the United States, citizens with impairments expect the same access to government information as anyone else. When government information is available on a web site, that information must be accessible for people with impairments. People with perceptual, motor, and/or cognitive impairments may access web sites using different assistive technologies, such as screen readers or alternative keyboards, or may need content in alternative formats (e.g. a transcript needs to exist for any audio). In cooperation with the Maryland Technology Assistance Program, a research group from Towson University evaluated Maryland state government web sites for accessibility. The goal of this paper is to report on how well Maryland state government web sites are currently meeting the needs of these diverse user populations. This is a major issue: recent population estimates indicate that approximately 112 000 individuals in Maryland between the ages of 16 and 74 have a sensory impairment, and 281 000 individuals in Maryland between the ages of 16 and 74 have a physical impairment (see www.ilr.cornell.edu/edi/DisabilityStatistics/acs.cfm for more population statistics).