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City web team outlines accessibility improvements, plans focused user testing
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Summary
City user-experience lead Jacob Bridal briefed the COBAC on post-launch accessibility work for the new Bend city website, including a Doc Access PDF transcript tool, Siteimprove scans and a planned round of user research starting in June to test navigation and task flows for people with disabilities.
Jacob Bridal, a user experience designer for the City of Bend, told the City of Bend Accessibility Advisory Committee on April 23 that the city has launched several post-launch accessibility improvements and plans targeted user research in June.
"A website is never finished," Bridal said, describing steps the team is taking after launch: implementing a Doc Access feature that generates an accessible transcript view for PDFs, running Siteimprove scans to find structural and content issues, and conducting a content-audit to reduce redundant pages and simplify language to roughly an eighth-grade reading level. He invited committee members to help recruit and run focus groups, including people who use screen readers, and offered a shared contact email (web@bendoregon.gov) and a QR/link for sign-up for follow-up testing.
Bridal described concrete fixes already made — removing empty headings, adding text alternatives to iframes and improving page structure — and said the team will continue to prioritize tasks based on analytics and qualitative feedback. Committee members raised findability issues for specific tasks such as locating accessible parking rules and toggling calendar views; Bridal said the team is reviewing the calendar default and intends to make accessible parking information easier to find by combining related parking pages and adjusting landing content.
Why it matters: the committee emphasized that people with disabilities need to find time‑sensitive, practical information (for example whether accessible parking is metered) quickly and reliably. Bridal said the city will monitor analytics and usability tests to re-prioritize menu items and page layouts, and that the team will begin more formal user research in June to compare the new site to the prior site.
The presentation concluded with an open request for COBAC assistance in recruiting participants and reporting accessibility issues that automated tools may miss. Bridal repeated the invitation to contact web@bendoregon.gov or use the sign-up link shown in his slide deck.
