Accessibility & ADA Compliance

The Standard

Public bodies in the United States are generally required to make their websites and posted meeting content accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II and Section 508. The technical standard these rules point to is WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

Agenda Beacon is designed and tested against WCAG 2.1 AA: correct page structure and landmarks, full keyboard operation, visible focus indicators, compliant color contrast, and screen-reader-friendly forms and dialogs. Our public statement lives at the Accessibility link in the site footer.

What Agenda Beacon Handles For You

• Public portals, agendas, minutes, policies, and search are built on accessible components with proper headings and keyboard support.
• Colors and contrast come from a central design system that meets AA contrast ratios; information is never shown by color alone.
• Printed and downloaded agendas use clean, high-contrast layouts suitable for all readers.
• Automated accessibility audits run across the public and signed-in experience as part of ongoing development.

Your Uploaded Documents

Documents your organization posts — agendas, minutes, attachments — must themselves be accessible. A scanned PDF that is just a picture of pages cannot be read by a screen reader and does not meet the standard.

Agenda Beacon checks every PDF uploaded to an agenda item, Meeting Documents, or Minutes. The check starts automatically after upload and gives editors plain-language results beside the file, before a problem reaches the public.

Understand The Accessibility Badge

• Accessible: the basic checks passed. Open the badge to review the full checklist.
• Needs attention: one or more basics, such as the title or language, are missing. The number on the badge shows how many checks need attention.
• Scanned - not readable: the pages appear to be images without a readable text layer. The file needs OCR or a new export from its source.
• Not checked: the file is not a PDF. Review Word documents, images, and other formats in the program that created them.

Click the badge to check readable text, document title, language, tagged structure and reading order, and restrictions that could block assistive technology.

Use Fix & Optimize

Meeting editors can open a Needs attention badge and choose Fix & Optimize. Confirm or enter a clear document title, then run the improvement. Agenda Beacon adds the title and document language, asks PDF readers to display the title, and removes supported copy restrictions. The improved PDF replaces the original while keeping its file name, visibility, and search entry.

Open the badge again after the check finishes. A file may still show Needs attention when it has no tagged structure. Tags describe headings, lists, tables, and reading order; they cannot be reconstructed reliably from every finished PDF.

Fix Problems That Need The Source Document

• Scanned pages: run OCR in a document tool, or return to the source document and export a new PDF with selectable text.
• Missing tags or reading order: re-export from Word with its document-structure accessibility options enabled, or remediate the PDF in a dedicated accessibility tool.
• Tables, diagrams, and images: add useful headers, reading order, and alternative text in the source document before exporting again.

Prefer exporting directly from Word, Google Docs, or your source application instead of printing and scanning. A direct export preserves searchable text and more document structure.

Review Current And Older Files

Administrators can open Administration > Document Settings > Document Accessibility to review files across the organization. Use Public only to focus on documents visitors can see, or Needs attention to focus on work that remains.

Choose Check older files to inspect documents uploaded before the automatic checker was introduced. Reopen any result from the list to review its checklist and available next step.

The checker covers common PDF accessibility basics and helps resolve supported metadata problems. A passing badge is not a certification of full WCAG or PDF/UA compliance.

Reporting A Problem

If a visitor or board member encounters an accessibility barrier, contact support@agendabeacon.com. Accessibility reports are prioritized.