Audit of the Executive Office of the Trial Court (August 6, 2025)

This is a Massachusetts State Auditor performance audit of the Executive Office of the Trial Court’s website for July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024.

“In accordance with Section 12 of Chapter 11 of the Massachusetts General Laws, the Office of the State Auditor has conducted a performance audit of the Executive Office of the Trial Court (EOTC) for the period July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024.”

The auditor wanted to check whether the Trial Court website met common accessibility standards for things like keyboard use, navigation, language, errors, colors, and general usability.

“The purpose of our audit was to determine whether EOTC’s website adhered to the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 for user accessibility, keyboard accessibility, navigation accessibility, language accessibility, error identification, and color accessibility.”

Court websites are often how people find legal information and services, so barriers on the site can make it harder for people with disabilities to use the courts.

“Government websites are an important way for the general public to access government information and services.”

If you or someone you know has trouble seeing, using a mouse, or navigating websites, these problems could make it harder to get court information online.

“Regarding keyboard accessibility, if functional elements on a webpage cannot be navigated using only keyboard commands, then users with limited motor abilities may be unable to navigate to needed information.”

In the sample the auditor reviewed, 21 of 60 webpages had accessibility issues.

“We determined that 21 (35%) webpages out of our sample of 60 were not in accordance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).”

The auditor recommended that the Trial Court fix zoom problems, keyboard-only access barriers, and faulty links.

“EOTC should work to resolve accessibility barriers that prevent certain features from being used with only keyboard commands.”

This report is also significant because the Trial Court refused to participate, which the auditor said broke from past practice.

“The response received to this audit represents a significant deviation from historical practice.”

WCAG means Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, a set of standards meant to help websites work better for people with disabilities.

“In 1999, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international nongovernmental organization responsible for internet standards, published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0 to provide guidance on how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.”