CivicPlus Accessibility FAQs

CivicPlus is committed to facilitating accessibility and usability across all its digital products for people with disabilities. Our products are designed with accessibility as the backbone, and we add guardrails to keep user-added content within compliance as best we can.

We audit our software using manual testing, including screen readers, the best professional engineering tools at our disposal, experienced partners, and human testing to ensure we have a strong assessment of our compliance.

We actively monitor legislative developments and updates to accessibility standards. We have compiled an overview of recent and current legislative developments in states such as Colorado and Virginia, as well as federal updates, including the DOJ's Final Rule on ADA Title II. This ensures that our products and services remain compliant with the latest national and local requirements.

CivicPlus has multiple team members certified as accessibility experts by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). These certifications demonstrate that a person has a broad, cross-disciplinary conceptual knowledge

The CPACC and WCAG are ideal credentials for those who manage and support accessibility. In addition, our product design and engineering teams follow and keep up to date with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a working group that aims to make web content accessible to users with disabilities, including visual, auditory, cognitive, and motor impairments. We have internal resources dedicated to educating and advancing Accessibility awareness and knowledge across all of our teams at CivicPlus.

CivicPlus does not accept third-party scans from vendors outside our approved network. This policy ensures consistency, security, and efficiency by using only validated tools and methodologies. CivicPlus exclusively partners with AudioEye and Aquia Web Governance. If you have any questions about AudioEye, don't hesitate to get in touch with your Customer Success Manager.

Yes. We use a combination of automated tools, manual testing, and human testing, including screen reader users, to assess accessibility. This ensures a comprehensive evaluation of our platforms against WCAG 2.1 AA standards

We provide several key documents to support our commitment to accessibility and help show progress forward:

• Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPAT): These documents map each WCAG 2.1 AA criterion to our platform's current conformance status.

• Accessibility Progress Reports (APR): These reports present the progress made by CivicPlus in implementing our accessibility plan.

• Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACR): Based on the Information Technology Industry Council's VPAT, these reports detail our compliance with accessibility standards.

CivicPlus designs to WCAG 2.1 guidelines or higher. In addition to our Annual VPATs and Quarterly progress reports, we maintain a remediation dashboard, which includes the compliance percentages and required criteria needed for each CivicPlus product.

All accessibility issues are logged internally and triaged based on severity, frequency, and real-world user impact. High-priority items are flagged for escalation, while others are scheduled into upcoming sprint cycles based on impact and complexity. This ensures that accessibility improvements are handled with both urgency and strategic alignment to our roadmap.

Accessibility is built into every phase of our product lifecycle. Our design team is trained in WCAG guidelines and W3C accessibility standards, ensuring that inclusive design is foundational, not an afterthought. During wireframing and prototyping, we apply best practices for color contrast, focus order, semantic structure, and responsive design. By embedding accessibility checkpoints into each phase, we're able to ship experiences that work, right from the start.

Our corporate Accessibility Policy is published on our Help Center.

Common issues include missing alternative text for images, poor color contrast, lack of keyboard navigation, inaccessible forms, and missing captions for videos. We use tools like Aquia Web Governance and AudioEye for baseline monitoring and real-time remediation.

While CivicPlus addresses platform-level accessibility, customers are responsible for:

• Content-level compliance: Including Alt Text, link labels, and heading structure.

• Uploaded documents: PDFs and Word files must be made accessible. Our partner CommonLook is here to help.

• Third-party embeds: Content from external sources must meet accessibility standards independently

Customers are encouraged to submit verified issues with context and examples. We prioritize issues that align with our roadmap and compliance strategy. Our formal SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for reviewing third-party reports ensures all accessibility issues are handled consistently and efficiently.

We offer various resources, including:

• Training materials: Workshops and webinars on creating accessible content.

• Documentation: Guides on using our accessibility tools, features, and partners.

• Support: Access to our help desk.