During that time, several new public administration websites were created, redesigns took place, and audits and inspections were carried out. Accessibility has meanwhile become a regular part of the professional debate. Yet in systematic measurement we still keep encountering very similar problems.
After 2,500 days we can no longer speak of a new or unclear requirement. The question today is not whether a website should be accessible, but why the same errors keep repeating in practice and why some digital services still have zero usability for part of their users.
Why the act was created and what it was meant to change
The purpose of the accessibility act was not to add another administrative obligation. Its goal was to ensure that the state's digital services work for all users regardless of health limitations, age or technical conditions.
Public administration today relies on digital channels. If websites, forms or documents are inaccessible, the result is not just a worse user experience. It is a real barrier to accessing information, obligations and rights. Digital inaccessibility is therefore not a technical detail, but a systemic problem.
What the data shows after 2,500 days
Experience from Index CSGOV and other long-term measurements shows that accessibility is often addressed reactively. Only when an audit, a warning or a specific problem arrives. Less often it is part of regular operations, development and continuous monitoring.
The data also shows that the problems are neither random nor exceptional. They repeat across institutions, technologies and suppliers. These are not exotic errors at the edge of the standards, but fundamental failures with a direct impact on the usability of the service.
Critical errors are a typical example. There are relatively few of them in the total count, but their impact is fundamental. They mean that the user cannot reach the content at all, cannot submit a form, or cannot orient themselves on the page. For that person, the digital service de facto does not exist.
Where the act most often diverges from reality
One of the main problems is not the legislation itself, but the way accessibility translates into practice. It often remains separated from regular processes. It is treated as a standalone check at the end of a project, instead of being a natural part of the brief, the design and the development.
Another common pattern is blurred responsibility. Accessibility "should be handled by the supplier", "should be covered by the audit", or "will be fixed later". The result is that no specific person is actually responsible for it.
Documents and forms are a specific chapter. This is where barriers with a direct impact on users appear most often. An inaccessible PDF, a form without labels or an error message without an explanation can completely block the completion of a task.
Accessibility is not a checklist, but a property of the service
One of the most widespread misconceptions is the idea that accessibility means ticking off a set of technical points. The automated check passes, the score is "green", and that's it. But compliance with the standard does not yet mean that the service is genuinely usable and meets the needs of the user.
In practice, accessibility is very closely tied to the quality of the digital service as a whole. To the comprehensibility of content, the predictability of behaviour, the readability of the interface and consistency across systems. Where accessibility works, UX usually works too. And vice versa.
What should change in the next 2,500 days
If accessibility is to stop being a recurring problem, it must become part of the everyday functioning of teams. Not as an exception, but as a standard. That means starting with the brief, clearly naming responsibility and working with accessibility continuously, not only at the final check.
Long-term measurement plays a crucial role. A one-off audit shows the state at a given moment. Regular monitoring, however, shows whether the website is actually improving, where errors keep returning and what impact changes or redesigns have. That is exactly the contribution of Index CSGOV. It cannot, however, replace a manual audit performed by a specialist; it serves rather as guidance and for catching the basic, automatically detectable errors.
There is currently a shortage of specialists, because there is nowhere for them to be educated systematically. If accessibility is included in education, everyone in the chain of building a digital product (from project managers, through designers and developers, to testers) will have at least a basic grounding.
The act was a beginning, not a goal
2,500 days since the act came into force show one important thing. A legislative framework is necessary, but it is not enough on its own. Real accessibility is decided by everyday practice, by how processes are set up and by the willingness to look at digital services through the eyes of real users.
Accessibility is not a one-off task or an administrative obligation. It is a property of a quality digital service. And it is on this that the coming years will show whether the digital state is moving from formal compliance to real usability.