ADA Compliance for Texas Websites and Financial Systems
Texas public bodies must meet WCAG 2.1 AA by April 26, 2027, and so must the investment portals, payment platforms and forms their vendors build. Fixing a live system takes months, not weeks. We find what scanners miss and fix it in your code, not with an overlay.
WCAG 2.1 AA · Manual + screen-reader testing · Delivered for fintech teams serving Texas public finance
- Apr 26, 2027 Title II deadline for Texas public entities serving 50,000+ people
- 3,948 US website accessibility lawsuits in 2025, up 24%
- 3.7 million Texans live with a disability
Trusted by financial services leaders
Three ways the ADA reaches your website or system
You are a public body
City, county, school district, college or transit authority. Title II applies directly: WCAG 2.1 AA by your deadline.
You sell to a public body
Investment pool and treasury portals, payment, e-filing and learning platforms. Your buyer's deadline becomes yours, and Texas bids score accessibility.
You serve the public
Banks, fintechs, insurers, SaaS, retail and healthcare. Title III applies, and Texas saw 177 federal ADA lawsuits in 2025.
Why companies that ignored accessibility got sued
In 2025, 3,948 website accessibility lawsuits were filed in the US, up 24% on 2024. Most come down to one of three assumptions.
“We installed a widget.”
983 lawsuits targeted sites with an overlay
About 1 in 4 websites sued in 2025 already had an accessibility widget installed. An overlay can't fix the code underneath, and in January 2025 the FTC fined an overlay vendor $1 million for claiming its AI made any site compliant in 48 hours.
What the widget couldn't fix
Form fields with no label
Buttons and icons with no name
Controls a keyboard can't reach
“The law doesn't apply to us.”
Texas: 177 federal ADA Title III lawsuits in 2025
There's no DOJ technical rule for private businesses yet, but plaintiffs and courts measure websites against WCAG 2.1 AA anyway. Banks, retailers, clinics, hotels and SaaS companies all count as businesses open to the public.
Who Title III covers
Banks and financial services
Shops, restaurants and hotels
Clinics and SaaS platforms
“We'll deal with it before the deadline.”
The extension doesn't pause lawsuits
The DOJ gave public entities an extra year in April 2026, but existing ADA duties still apply and private lawsuits can be filed today. Vendors who wait also risk losing public-sector bids that score accessibility evidence.
The cost of waiting
Demand letters and legal fees
Lost or down-scored public bids
Rushed rebuilds of live products
Sources: EcomBack 2025 ADA website lawsuit report; Seyfarth Shaw (ADA Title III); FTC, January 2025. This page is general information, not legal advice.
Your next customer might be using a screen reader. Or just reading glasses.
Accessibility isn't only about blindness. It's the 55-year-old CFO who sets her phone's font to 200%. By 2032, a quarter of the US workforce will be 55 or older.
- 19.6% of adults 50+ have vision loss
- 1 in 4 US adults has a disability
- 53 million US adults have arthritis
- 1 in 12 men are color-blind
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Better for everyone
Accessibility isn’t a special mode for a few visitors. It’s clearer forms, faster mobile journeys, readable text in bright light and videos that work on mute.
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Sales advantage
Texas public buyers now score accessibility in their bids. A credible report turns compliance into a sales asset.
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Lost customers
Every fiddly click, drag or hover is a reason to leave. If your product only works with a steady hand and a mouse, it doesn’t work for them.
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Color-only signals
If red means “error” and green means “success”, they may see no difference at all. When color is the only signal, your message doesn’t get through.
Small details that lock people out
Forms nobody can read
When a field isn't tied to its label, a screen reader just says “text input”. The user can't tell what to type, so they can't log in, apply or pay.
Buttons with no name
A logo, chat or menu icon without an accessible name is announced only as “button”. A blind user has no idea where it leads.
Keyboard dead ends
On one financial portal we tested, the control for adding a new fund couldn't be reached by keyboard. Anyone who can't use a mouse couldn't finish the task at all.
The law sets the obligation. WCAG defines how it's measured.
Color isn't the only signal; text has enough contrast.
Everything works from the keyboard; nobody gets trapped.
Predictable layouts, clear labels and error messages.
Works with screen readers and other assistive technology.
Nov 15, 2026 Texas DIR reports to the legislature on agency website accessibility.
Apr 26, 2027 ADA Title II: WCAG 2.1 AA for public entities serving 50,000+ people, including the portals, forms and apps their vendors build.
Dec 1, 2027 First biennial Texas agency website reviews due.
Apr 26, 2028 ADA Title II deadline for smaller entities and special districts.
April 2027 is closer than your backlog thinks
On a money market portal we work on, a whole admin panel was built before WCAG was planned in. Retrofitting labels, keyboard access, focus order and contrast took far longer than building it right would have. A marketing site takes weeks to fix; a transactional system takes months.
Plan my accessibility roadmapThe DOJ extended Title II deadlines in April 2026, but existing ADA duties still apply.
No plugins. No shortcuts. Tested and fixed in your code.
Buttons, inputs, modals, tabs and tables tested against WCAG 2.1 AA. If the building blocks fail, no screen-level fix will help.
Accessible components can still break when combined. We test every journey: sign-up, upload, payment, submit.
End to end on desktop and mobile, across browsers, with the assistive technology real people use.
A severity-ranked report mapped to WCAG criteria, code-level fixes, VPAT / ACR support and a workshop for your team.
A WCAG 2.1 AA program for a money market portal serving Texas public finance
A global fintech platform's money market fund portal is used by Texas Local Government Investment Pools, the funds cities, counties and school districts use to invest public money. That puts it under ADA Title II and Texas TAC 206, and a large admin panel had been built before accessibility was planned in.
- Title II and Texas TAC 206 in scope
- 3 levels of testing: components, screens, journeys
- Whole team trained: product, design and engineering
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Team workshop
From why accessibility matters to WCAG, Title II vs III and the evidence Texas buyers ask for.
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Hands-on testing
Keyboard-only and screen-reader testing (VoiceOver, NVDA) of components, screens and full journeys.
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Fixes in the code
Labels tied to fields, named buttons, keyboard access to every control, decorative elements hidden from screen readers.
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Lesson: start with design
Fixing color tokens and components after launch costs far more than getting them right first.
Proof, in their words
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“We used to call Authentic Digital the impossible team because we challenged them a lot, and they always delivered.”
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"They are authentic and always go above and beyond to deliver for us."
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“They had the resources to easily scale up, even as a smaller company.”
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"Their expertise, enthusiasm and professional approach ensures that we consistently deliver exceptional technology solutions. In a world increasingly full of AI slop it's always best to work with Actual Intelligence."
Standards we work to
Every project is tested against the standards your regulators, courts and buyers actually use.
Delivered: completed client work to this standard. Covered: our audits map directly to its requirements. Supported: we prepare the evidence you need. Best practice: the newer standard we also test against.
- WCAG 2.1 AA Delivered
- ADA Title II (DOJ web rule) Delivered
- ADA Title III Covered
- Texas TAC 206 & 213 Covered
- VPAT / ACR documentation Supported
- WCAG 2.2 AA Best practice
- EU Accessibility Act Delivered
Get a free accessibility snapshot
Find out where you stand before someone else does. Send us your URL or tell us about your system, and we'll come back with your top issues and a plain-English plan.
"They are authentic and always go above and beyond to deliver for us".
Questions we hear most
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Is my business required to comply?
If you're a Texas public body, yes: Title II makes WCAG 2.1 AA the standard. If you sell to public bodies, it's in your contracts and bids. If you serve the public, Title III applies and courts look to WCAG 2.1 AA.
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When is the deadline?
April 26, 2027 for public entities serving 50,000+ people; April 26, 2028 for smaller ones and special districts.
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Why start now if the deadline is 2027?
Because remediation takes longer than most teams expect. A website can be fixed in weeks; a portal or admin panel with complex forms, tables and workflows often needs months of design, development and retesting. And private lawsuits are possible today.
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Do you only work on websites?
No. Most of our work is in fintech: investment and money market portals, admin panels, dashboards and customer apps. We test and fix web and mobile products end to end.
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Can't I just install an accessibility widget?
No. Overlays don't fix the code underneath, and about a quarter of 2025 website lawsuits targeted sites that had one.
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What evidence will I get?
A report mapped to WCAG success criteria, test notes per journey, and documentation for your VPAT / Accessibility Conformance Report.
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Will we have to change our brand?
Rarely much. Sometimes a color shade or text size, and we propose options that keep your look.