What to Do in the First 30 Days After an Accessibility Complaint
Today’s blog post explores what you should do in the first 30 days after receiving an accessibility complaint. Whether the complaint comes through email, a formal grievance, or a demand letter, your response should protect your organization while helping you identify and fix the accessibility issue.
Video Guide
Start With a Clear Plan
When you open your inbox and see an accessibility complaint, your first reaction may be to respond immediately or start fixing things before you understand the full situation. A structured response will serve you better.
Start with a few basic principles:
- Do not ignore the complaint.
- Avoid promising a complete fix before you understand the scope.
- Bring in legal and technical support early.
Your first 30 days should move through several stages, from acknowledging the complaint to building a written remediation plan and communicating progress back to the complainant.
Days 0-2: Acknowledge the Complaint and Stabilize the Response
Acknowledge the complaint promptly so the person knows you received it and are reviewing the issue. Keep the response professional and avoid language that admits liability before you understand what happened.
You might say:
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are reviewing the issue you raised and will follow up with next steps.”
At this stage, focus on understanding the situation before committing to deadlines. If you promise to fix everything within two weeks and later discover that the issue affects multiple forms, hundreds of documents, or a third-party system, you may create unnecessary problems for your team.
Days 1-5: Involve Legal Counsel and Define the Team
Contact an attorney who understands ADA and digital accessibility claims as soon as possible, especially if you receive a demand letter or formal grievance. Legal counsel can help you shape your response and identify issues that need immediate attention.
You should also define who needs to participate in the response. Depending on your organization, that may include:
- The ADA coordinator
- The accessibility lead
- Web or IT staff
- Content owners
- Communications or public relations staff
- Legal counsel
- An accessibility specialist or consultant
Assign clear responsibilities from the start. Decide who will communicate with the complainant, who will lead the audit and remediation work, and who will document each action.
Days 2-7: Understand Exactly What the Complaint Covers
Turn the complaint into a specific list of issues you can test and address. Then connect each allegation to the task the user could not complete.
Instead of recording “the website is inaccessible,” document the issue more precisely. For example:
- Screen-reader user cannot complete application because form fields lack proper labels
- User cannot access meeting minutes because PDF lacks structure needed for assistive technology.
Review the surrounding context as well. Check whether your organization has received similar complaints before and whether your accessibility statement addresses the service or content involved.
By the end of this phase, you should have a specific list of URLs, documents, systems, and user tasks that need further review.
Days 5-15: Conduct a Focused Accessibility Audit
Once you define the scope, test the items named in the complaint. Use more than one testing method so you can understand both the technical defects and the real impact on users.
Start with automated scanning where it makes sense. Automated tools can quickly identify issues such as missing alternative text, some form-label problems, and certain structural errors.
Follow that work with manual testing. Human review can identify problems that automated tools often miss, including keyboard navigation problems, poor focus behavior, confusing link text, and issues with content structure.
When appropriate, test with assistive technologies such as screen readers. The goal is to determine whether users can complete important tasks, not simply whether a scanning tool reports a passing result.
You should also review the affected content against the relevant WCAG criteria. If the complaint involves a website, app, PDF, or other digital document, include those assets in your review.
Expand slightly beyond the exact item named in the complaint when the situation calls for it. If one application page contains an accessibility barrier, related pages in the same workflow may have the same problem.
Days 10-20: Start High-Impact Fixes
You do not need to wait until the full audit ends before addressing obvious barriers. If your team identifies a clear issue that blocks access and can fix it quickly, start the remediation work.
Common examples include:
- Missing alternative text to important images
- Broken form labels
- Keyboard traps
- Keyboard access
- Document headings and structure
Focus first on barriers that prevent people from completing essential tasks.
If a critical barrier requires more time to fix, provide a temporary accommodation where possible. You might offer phone assistance, an accessible alternative format, or another way to complete the same task.
Document What You Do
Documentation matters throughout the response process. Record the complaint, your testing, the barriers you confirmed, the work you completed, and the dates associated with each action.
Your records should also show who owned each task and how the fix addressed the user’s barrier. If you provide a temporary accommodation, document that as well.
This information helps your team track progress and gives your organization a clear record if regulators, attorneys, or other outside parties later review the matter.
Days 15-25: Build a Written Remediation Plan
Use your audit findings to create a written remediation plan. Prioritize the areas that matter most to users and to your organization’s core services.
Focus on items such as:
- Services that affect access to programs or benefits
- High-traffic public pages
- Important forms
- Documents required for participation
- Critical user flows
- Third-party tools that support essential services
Review third-party systems carefully. Learning management systems, payment portals, scheduling tools, and other vendor platforms may create accessibility barriers even when your organization did not build them.
Assign an owner to each remediation item and set realistic deadlines. A useful plan may show what your organization expects to address within 30, 60, and 90 days.
Your remediation plan should turn the audit into a practical roadmap that people can follow and update.
Days 20-30: Communicate Back to the Complainant
Before the first 30 days end, update the complainant on your progress and make sure your response is clear, accessible, and specific. Your communication should:
- Provide the response in an accessible format when needed, such as large print, braille, audio, or another appropriate format.
- Acknowledge the issues raised without making unnecessary legal admissions.
- Share the accessibility fixes your organization has already completed.
- Explain the remaining remediation work at a high level.
- Include a realistic timeline where appropriate.
- Provide clear contact information so the complainant knows how to follow up if the issue continues.
Focus on concrete actions rather than broad promises about accessibility.
Use the Complaint to Strengthen Your Accessibility Program
An accessibility complaint can reveal more than one isolated defect. It can show you where your policies, testing practices, content workflows, or staff training need improvement.
Federal Title II guidance encourages organizations to build broader accessibility practices, including web accessibility planning, digital asset inventories, staff training, and internal policies.
Use what you learn from the complaint to improve your overall program. Review or update your digital accessibility policy and public accessibility statement. Make sure users know how to report accessibility problems and how your organization will respond.
Set up regular monitoring for your digital properties. Automated tools can help identify certain issues, while periodic manual reviews and assistive technology testing can catch problems that automated scans miss.
Train the People Who Create and Manage Digital Content
Long-term accessibility depends on the people who create, publish, buy, and maintain digital content. Training helps reduce the number of new barriers your organization introduces over time.
- Content creators should know how to structure headings, write useful alternative text, create accessible links, and produce accessible documents.
- Developers should understand keyboard access, semantic structure, accessible forms, focus management, and other core accessibility practices.
- Procurement teams should understand how to evaluate third-party products before purchase or deployment.
Accessibility becomes easier to maintain when the people responsible for daily digital work understand how their choices affect users.
Let me be your champion for inclusion. I offer tailored solutions (and self-paced courses!) to ensure your documents meet and exceed compliance expectations. For more detailed insights, tutorials, and in-depth discussions on accessibility and related topics, don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel: The Accessibility Guy on YouTube. Subscribe for regular updates!
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