Recap: How Higher Ed Content Teams Scale Accessibility Across Campus
With ADA Title II deadlines approaching quickly, Meeting the ADA 2026 Deadline brought together higher education marketing leaders to share how their institutions are tackling WCAG 2.1 accessibility requirements — especially at scale, and across distributed campus teams.
Austin Wessel (Lytho) moderated a candid conversation with Lindsey Gerard (South Dakota State University Extension) and Anna Ghiotti (Harper College) about what it really takes to move from one-time remediation to sustainable, repeatable accessibility practices.
Where teams are right now: “In the process”
Both panelists shared that their institutions are actively working through evaluations and remediation — particularly around legacy website content and PDFs. A key takeaway: accessibility work can feel like progress… until you discover “another thousand pages,” another microsite, or another content library to review. Accessibility isn’t a finish line; it’s an ongoing operational standard.
Biggest challenges: backlog + day-to-day work
The biggest pain point is balancing remediating past materials while still meeting fast-moving day-to-day marketing demands. The panel emphasized that scaling accessibility requires repeatable workflows, so teams don’t have to “reinvent the wheel” for every new project.
Governance and accountability across campus
At Harper College, accessibility isn’t owned by marketing alone. As Anna explained, “It’s the institution’s initiative” that requires collaboration across departments. Their web manager has been leading college-wide seminars on accessibility to help faculty and staff understand accessibility.
The training is meant to share key facts about accessibility: “this is what [accessibility] means, this is why it’s important, and this is what you need to do to be compliant,” said Anna.
At South Dakota State, governance is reinforced through structure and enforcement. Lindsey emphasized that accessibility expectations are no longer optional.
“Compliance is required. It’s not an above-and-beyond effort anymore,” she said. Access to publishing platforms is tied to training, meaning contributors must complete accessibility training before they are granted permission to publish content.
Together, both institutions underscored the same reality: scaling accessibility across campus requires both education and accountability — cultural buy-in paired with operational guardrails.
PDFs are the biggest hurdle in ADA compliance (and a major opportunity)
Across higher education, PDFs remain one of the most common content formats — and one of the hardest to govern.
From program sheets and fact sheets to curriculum guides, extension publications, and admissions materials, PDFs have long been the default because they’re portable, printable, and easy to share. But that portability is also what makes them difficult to manage. Once a PDF is downloaded, emailed, or saved locally, institutions lose visibility and control over where it’s used — and whether it’s the most current, accessible version.
Version control becomes a persistent issue. Updating a webpage is immediate. Updating a PDF requires redesign, re-exporting, re-posting — and hoping outdated versions aren’t still circulating.
Both panelists named PDFs as the most common and most challenging content type to keep accessible. As Lindsey Girard shared, even remediation itself can be inefficient:
“For us, remediation was taking us approximately 43% longer than remaking it from scratch.”
Because of this, institutions are rethinking their approach. Strategies discussed included:
- Removing outdated or unnecessary PDFs
- Avoiding duplication by choosing either a web page or a PDF — not both
- Rebuilding content in more sustainable formats when possible
Rather than simply fixing files, teams are using ADA compliance as an opportunity to reassess content architecture and long-term governance.
How Lytho supports accessibility governance in higher education
Both panelists called out the value of tools and workflows that make accessibility more manageable across busy teams:
- Lindsey shared that accessibility was part of the original business case for purchasing Lytho: “I actually used accessibility as one of our justifications for purchasing Lytho… and outlined how it was so necessary to have this workflow [that includes review and approval within the platform], define governance, and use repetitive processes for producing content. It is truer now than it was then.”
- A consistent starting point and clear “bounds.” Lindsey noted that Lytho helps by creating a reliable intake and process foundation, making it easier to clarify what must be accessible, what options exist to achieve that, and what’s out of scope.
- Proofing and stakeholder feedback loops. Because review and approval is built in to Lytho, teams collect feedback from the right people at the right time. Lindsey emphasized that this means accessibility and compliance issues can be addressed before publishing (instead of “oops” fixes after the fact).
- Non-negotiable workflow adoption. “Work doesn’t get done unless it comes through Lytho, full stop,” Anna explained. Using one system creates traceability, keeps requests centralized, and reinforces accountability across the team.
AI’s role in ADA compliance for higher education: helpful today, more powerful tomorrow
AI is already helping teams interpret guidelines, clarify next steps, and validate approaches quickly. Looking forward, panelists were excited about AI handling structured tasks like drafting high-quality alt text and assisting with repeatable accessibility checks.
So, where are higher education institutions today on their path to ADA compliance?
Speakers from Harper College and SDSU framed accessibility compliance success as both measurable and cultural:
- Stronger institution-wide awareness is critical; this is not just a “marketing” problem
- Better cross-department communication. Both speakers mentioned that their HR departments were involved in leading the accessibility charge.
- Getting the right tools in people’s hands early, so teams can create compliant content from the start, with extra credit for standardizing on one tool and process
- Clear expectations that accessibility is required; not optional
Bottom line: Scaling accessibility is possible, but it takes governance, prioritization, shared ownership, and repeatable workflows — supported by systems like Lytho that keep work centralized, reviewable, and consistent.
Learn more about how Lytho supports compliance in creative operations for higher education. Or find a time to chat with Lytho about your specific needs.