Future-Proofing Accessibility for Government and University Drupal Platforms

Accessibility is top of mind for many of our colleagues in Drupal, and by the time of the planned DrupalCon Chicago session our United States Department of Justice imposed federal deadline is coming up shortly for all sites to comply with posted accessibility standards.

Lullabot co-owners Kat Shaw, also of A11yTalks, Javier Reartes, who's implemented front-end development for major state and university websites, and myself, Nikki Flores, who was project manager for an award-winning implementation for a statewide redevelopment platform, plan to share on lessons learned from the field. Lullabot integrates accessibility very deeply into their processes and will be sharing from our past years' project implementations in the talk: Future-Proofing Accessibility: Strategies for Government & University Platforms.

• When:
  Tuesday, March 24, 2026 - 15:00 to 15:50 CDT
• Room:
  Continental Room C (Lobby Level)
• Track:
  user experience, accessibility & design

Those who most benefit from this session are day-to-day content managers, developers, and product owners who have recurring needs and must comply with accessibility guidelines and/or a desire to build more practice in "shifting left" into their ongoing work streams. The examples we're drawing from as a combined group include development work for Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Dartmouth Health, UMass Amherst, Harvard Library, State of Massachusetts, and State of Iowa.

We'll discuss the basics, including Drupal's built-in accessibility advantage, as well as common pitfalls with examples, and our proposed action Items. We'll share our suggested next steps for those tasked with implementing accessibility practices within their organization or endeavor. Most importantly, we'll offer a question-and-answer period for participants concerned about accessibility, and share out answers and a resource list for participant and their continuing education.

We look forward to sharing our thoughts and lessons learned from our combined fifty years building on Drupal. Come prepared with your questions or ping us on LinkedIn.

We're always happy to share our mistakes so you don't have to make the same ones!