At a Glance Who Is Affected
Laradon serves 450+ people annually with 10 listed disabilities — Intellectual Disability, Down Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Seizure Disorder, ADHD, Mental Health, Anxiety/OCD, and more. Each disability maps to specific barriers on laradon.org today. These aren't edge cases — they're our primary users.
Severe Autism
"Visual Shout" — countdown timer, popup modals, competing CTAs overwhelm
Cerebral Palsy / Motor
"Keystroke Tax" — 100+ tab stops on
every page, hover-only menus, 20px targets, no focus indicators
Down Syndrome
Unstructured content — text walls, merged list items, no visual cues
Anxiety / OCD
Panic triggers — countdown pressure, broken links erode trust, decision paralysis
Findings → People How Technical Failures Harm Real Users
Each finding from What We Found connects to specific people Laradon serves. The profiles below show the human cost — but here's the bridge from code to consequence.
Finding No Skip Navigation
↓ harms
Profile 4: Parent with cerebral palsy must tab 100+ times per page. Profile 7: Job seeker with ADHD loses focus in the noise.
Finding Countdown Timer
↓ harms
Profile 3: Person with seizure disorder faces medical risk. Profile 6: Donor with anxiety experiences panic. Profile 2: Student with autism gets sensory overload.
Finding Lorem Ipsum
↓ harms
Profile 1: Student with IDD encounters a "cognitive trap." Profile 5: Student with Down Syndrome can't parse the page.
Finding Broken Contact Links
↓ harms
Profile 8: Person in mental health crisis hits dead ends on the one page that matters most. Families: Caregivers seeking enrollment can't reach Laradon.
Impact What Laradon Loses
Students & Program Participants
Primary Mission Population
People with IDD, severe autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, seizure disorders, anxiety, ADHD, OCD — many are children; some navigate independently, others via caregivers. These are the
10 disabilities listed on Laradon's homepage. They encounter every barrier documented in this audit — lorem ipsum confuses them, countdown timers trigger seizures and anxiety, hover-only menus lock them out of service pages. The
450+ people Laradon serves annually are the
most harmed population.
Families & Caregivers
Lost Enrollment
Parents, adult children, social workers, case managers, referral coordinators — the people who find Laradon on behalf of someone with a disability. They face hover-only menus, no site search, no "How to enroll" call to action, and
4 broken contact links (including the CEO email). A parent searching for special education in Denver cannot navigate to
The Laradon School by keyboard. The caregiver "interpretation burden" means they must decode ambiguous links ("Read More", "View", "Explore") on behalf of the person they serve.
Potential Donors
$3.5M/yr at Risk
26% of American adults have a disability — that's a significant portion of any donor pool. Inaccessible donation flows (FastAction modals, a "$16 Funds Donated" counter that should show ~$2.14M, 5+ distinct donation paths, unlabeled forms) create friction that directly reduces giving.
The Foundation raised $3.5M in FY23-24 — how much more could be raised if every donation path worked for every user? Colorado Gives Day participants, foundation program officers, and corporate partners all use the site.
Government Partners & Funders
~$15M+/yr at Risk
CO Dept of Education, HCPF/Medicaid,
24 school districts, other IDD providers, referral coordinators. Government employees themselves may use assistive technology. Under
Section 504, HHS OCR can investigate, mandate corrective action, and
terminate ~$15M+/yr in federal funding. Laradon has no accessibility statement, no VPAT documentation, and an ADA/Title VI PDF that only covers
transportation — not the digital estate. Districts updating procurement under
Title II will require WCAG warranties Laradon cannot provide.
Job Seekers
Title I Intersection
Applicants including people with disabilities — and Laradon, as an IDD organization, attracts applicants with lived disability experience. The
Careers page has a cookie banner that traps keyboard focus, form fields without
<label> elements, and
a hidden alternate URL with an accessibility statement that no one can find. An inaccessible job application process intersects
ADA Title I (employment discrimination) — compounding the web accessibility exposure with employment law liability.
"This isn't compliance for compliance's sake — it's mission delivery through digital channels."
— Board narrative, synthesized from all five audits
Profile 1 A Student with Intellectual Disability
Today's Barriers
- Lorem ipsum in the Events section of the homepage is a "cognitive trap": a user with IDD expends mental energy trying to decode nonsensical text, believes the site is broken, and gives up.
- Ambiguous links: 6× "Read More »" links on the homepage, bare "View" links on events, bare "Learn More" / "Explore" on service cards — all require the user to remember which section they're in. For someone with working-memory limitations, this forces caregiver help.
- Broken headings: The School page jumps from H1 → H6. Homepage jumps H1 → H3 → H6. Users who navigate by headings (screen readers or cognitive tools) get lost. (WCAG 1.3.1)
- No site search: Users with memory or learning disabilities often rely on search as their primary navigation tool. Laradon has none, forcing reliance on complex hierarchical menus.
After Remediation: Clear, specific link labels reduce working-memory load and support independent task completion. Plain language and consistent structure reduce the caregiver "interpretation burden".
Evidence: W3C COGA Task Force patterns; persona "George" (Down Syndrome) specifically models these barriers.
Profile 2 A Student with Severe Autism
Today's Barriers
- Countdown timer on Online Donations, Ways to Give, and the homepage creates a "visual shout" — a constantly-changing stimulus that demands attention and triggers sensory overload.
- Popup/overlay CTAs: EveryAction FastAction loads repeated modals that appear without warning. No
role="dialog", no aria-modal. Unpredictable changes trigger anxiety spikes.
- Competing CTAs: At least 5 distinct donation mechanisms (EveryAction, FastAction, Donate buttons, PayPal, FreeWill). Multiple calls-to-action = decision paralysis for autistic users who need predictable, single-path experiences.
After Remediation: A calmer, predictable interaction model — single nav, fewer surprises, reduced motion/time pressure — improves completion rates and reduces distress.
Profile 3 A Person with Seizure Disorder
Today's Barriers
- Animated countdown digits = medical risk. The timer on the donation pages has rapidly changing numbers that may trigger photosensitive seizures. There is no pause button and the site does not check for
prefers-reduced-motion.
- SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy) is real — this is not a comfort issue, it is a safety issue.
After Remediation: Removing or controlling flashing/rapid animation and honoring prefers-reduced-motion eliminates a life-threatening risk vector.
Profile 4 A Parent with Cerebral Palsy
Today's Barriers
- 100+ tab stops with no skip-to-content link. Every page load requires tabbing through the full header navigation. The site has a duplicate navigation DOM — both the mobile and desktop menus are rendered, with the hidden one lacking
aria-hidden, doubling the tab count.
- Hover-only menus: Dropdown submenus only open on mouse hover. A switch user or keyboard user cannot access any sub-pages (Services, Programs, etc.).
- ~20px touch targets: Social icons in the footer, close buttons, and subscribe button are below the 24px WCAG 2.5.5 minimum. Each missed activation costs physical effort.
- Invisible focus indicators: Custom CSS overrides default browser focus styles — when a switch user tabs, they cannot see where they are.
"Keystroke tax": Without skip nav, a keyboard user presses Tab 20–30+ times per page just to reach content. Physical fatigue accumulates across pages.
After Remediation: Skip links, visible focus, and 24px+ targets mean a switch user can reach content in 3–5 activations instead of 100+. Independence instead of exhaustion.
Profile 5 A Student with Down Syndrome
Today's Barriers
- Same cognitive barriers as intellectual disability, compounded by unstructured content — text blocks instead of cards/lists, and lack of visual cues alongside text.
- On the homepage, "Down Syndrome Physical Disability" appears as a single merged list item — it's unclear if this describes one condition or two.
After Remediation: Visual cues alongside text, simple step-by-step processes, large targets, and undo/back functionality support
independent information seeking — exactly what the
W3C COGA "George" persona needs.
Profile 6 A Donor with Severe Anxiety / OCD
Today's Barriers
- "Time left to donate!" → the countdown timer creates artificial urgency that triggers anxiety and panic responses.
- Broken links on the Contact page → clicking an email that goes nowhere creates distrust.
- Multiple similar CTAs (5+ donation paths) → decision paralysis and OCD compulsion loops ("Did I pick the right one?").
- FastAction overlay errors aren't announced to assistive technology — users don't know if their submission succeeded.
After Remediation: Removing time pressure, providing pause/extend controls, keeping interactions predictable and reversible breaks the anxiety-avoidance cycle.
Profile 7 A Job Seeker with ADHD
Today's Barriers
- Popups and competing CTAs hijack attention. The EveryAction FastAction overlay appears unprompted.
- Duplicate navigation DOM: both mobile and desktop menus render in the DOM, creating visual/structural noise.
- Cookie banner on Careers page traps focus — the ApplyToJob integration's cookie consent captures keyboard focus and won't release it. The job application form also lacks labels.
- 11 self-referencing career benefit links: every benefit heading on the Careers page links back to the same page — a distraction loop.
After Remediation: Clear hierarchy, fewer interruptions, and structured navigation support executive function — focus on one task without constant distraction.
Profile 8 A Person in Mental Health Crisis
Today's Barriers
- Unexpected popups trigger trauma responses. A person seeking help at their most vulnerable moment encounters a FastAction overlay they didn't ask for.
- Complex interface, lack of user control: no way to pause, dismiss, or predict what happens next.
- Broken contact links on the one page where reaching a human matters most.
After Remediation: Calm, predictable flows reduce cognitive and emotional load. User control restores a sense of safety. People in crisis can follow through on service entry.
Also Affected Visual Impairment (Screen Reader Users)
While not among Laradon's 9 listed served populations, donors, parents, staff, and government partners may be blind or have low vision. 26% of U.S. adults have a disability.
- No skip nav = 100+ link announcements per page before reaching content.
- Lorem ipsum is nonsensical when read aloud by a screen reader.
- Empty alt on program photos — screen reader announces "image" with no context.
- No accessible PDFs — 7 PDFs including the ADA/Title VI plan return 403 errors or have unknown internal accessibility.
- SVGs without accessible names — decorative icons announced as unlabeled images.