The Clock Is Ticking: New ADA Web Content Rules Are Coming & Your Maps Might Not Comply

Imagine this: It’s April 2026. Your agency’s website is passing every accessibility compliance scan except one—your maps.

On April 24, 2024, the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division finalized a major update to the Americans with Disabilities Act, officially adopting the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA as the accessibility standard for all state and local government websites and digital services.

For public entities serving fewer than 50,000 persons, this rule does not go into effect until April 2027. However, for larger public entities serving 50,000+ persons, this deadline is rapidly approaching: April 24, 2026.

What does this mean?

As a public entity (including state and local governments), you are required to make your public facing websites and mobile applications accessible and compliant with the WCAG. Even if you are using 3rd party software (such as Esri), you are responsible for ensuring that content is also accessible. This includes providing captions for live and pre-recorded videos for individuals with hearing loss and providing alternative text for pictures, documents, and all visual content—including maps.

Maps are everywhere: zoning applications, utility networks, emergency routing, city landmarks, health equity dashboards, and even daily weather updates, just to name a few. Think about how often you rely on a map to make sense of a place, navigate, or connect to the world around you. For many of us, that visual context is automatic, but for a low-vision or blind individual using a screen-reader, those valuable maps can very quickly become silent spots on the screen.

Maps are inherently visual, making them one of the most complex accessibility challenges under the new ADA rules. According to WCAG 2.1, every visual element of the map must be accessible. From colors, lines, and symbology to legends and layers and scale bars that help users interpret spatial relationships. All non-text content requires alternative text that meets "equivalent purpose.”

That phrase, “equivalent purpose,” is key! It means that a person using a screen-reader must be able to gain the same understanding a sighted user would from the map: identify landmarks, understand spatial relationships, follow routing, and interpret meaning from the visual data. In other words, it requires that everyone, regardless of how they perceive or interact, be able to use and interpret the same spatial information.

A typical government website may host hundreds of maps, dashboards, and embedded ArcGIS apps. Since most GIS platforms don’t automatically generate alt-text, manual remediation can take hours per map and require both deep GIS knowledge and expertise in accessibility.

Unfortunately, the implications of not meeting compliance could be dire. Once the rule takes effect, inaccessible maps could expose agencies to ADA complaints or even litigation. More importantly, inaccessible spatial data can exclude the people who need them most—citizens seeking information about safety, services, and opportunity.

Imagine a flood-risk map without alt-text. This excludes blind and low vision citizens from understanding whether their homes are in danger zones. Inaccessible maps create a silent divide between those who can physically see spatial patterns and those who cannot.

Accessibility is not just a compliance checkbox. It’s a matter of civic equity. If a map informs public policy, shapes investments, or guides emergency response, then every resident deserves equal access to its meaning.

Meeting these new ADA requirements should not mean hours spent reviewing and describing every map by hand. That's why we built the Accessible Map Agent, designed specifically to be used in Esri environments. The result is not just compliance but communication! Text that mirrors the map’s meaning, making spatial data searchable, shareable, and screen-reader-friendly.

Dymaptic’s Accessible Map Agent can quickly read your Esri web maps, analyze the visible extent, features, and metadata, to generate a human (and screen-reader) readable, structured, and meaningful alternative text.

By automating what used to take hours of manual description, agencies can scale accessibility across hundreds of dashboards and web maps, reduce compliance risk, and include everyone in the story their data tells. With the Accessible Map Agent, you can save time, strengthen equity, and future-proof GIS workflows.

So, what should you do now? Don’t wait until April to start remediating your maps! Audit your ArcGIS portfolio, identify accessibility gaps, and modernize your workflows before the compliance crunch begins!

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Reach out to our team for a demo of our Accessible Map Agent or try it for yourself and see how it automatically generates map descriptions directly from your Esri content. We’ll walk you through how it fits into your existing GIS workflows, helps you meet WCAG 2.1 requirements, and transforms accessibility from a manual chore into a scalable, sustainable practice. Whether you manage one map or one hundred, we can help you meet the standard and ensure that every resident can access the spatial information that shapes their community.