Title
Civic Plus Website Accessibility Solutions
History
On April 24, 2024, the Federal Register published the Department of Justice’s (Department) final rule updating its regulations for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which includes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Version 2.1. The WCAG is the technical standard for web content and mobile apps and sets a specific technical standard that state and local governments must follow to meet their existing obligations under Title II of the ADA . The rules are being phased in based on the size of the local government. As the Village of Orland Park has over 50,000 residents, the Village must meet the requirement by April 24, 2026 or risk being out of compliance.
The Communications and Marketing team along with DoIT have been investigating solutions to make the website fully compliant. Originally the Village's current website provider, Granicus, was contacted to help bring the Village's website into compliance but due to ambiguity on the work they were willing to complete and if the website would be compliant by the deadline, it was determined that other solutions should be investigated.
After reviewing solutions, Marketing and Communications and DoIT are recommending a three software suite from CivicPlus that provides an automated tool to bring the Village's website into compliance and provide the ability to review PDF attachments on the website that will allow the Village identify those that need to be brought up to the standard.
The full platform includes three main parts;
Acquia Optimize reviews the website and identifies misspellings, broken links and overall website compatibility and provides recommendations. During the review phase, CivicPlus analyzed a portion of the Village website for compatibility and found it on 65.69% (see Attachment 1) compliant and was at 40% for quality assurance (see Attachment 2).
AudioEye, an automation platform that according to CivicP...
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