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Lincoln details digital-accessibility compliance plan and demos site and PDF tools
Summary
Staff told council the city has deployed new accessibility tools—Recite Me for website access and a PDF 'doc access' tool—and demonstrated features such as text-to-speech, focus text, language translation and AI page summarization. Staff said the city "has met, and actually exceeded, compliance."
The City of Lincoln presented its plan to comply with recent ADA Title II digital-accessibility requirements and demonstrated two accessibility solutions the city has implemented.
Jennifer Brown, who led the presentation, explained that the recent federal and state guidance expands digital accessibility requirements beyond visual and auditory disabilities to include fine-motor and cognitive needs. She described the policy landscape (Section 508, AB434 and the Department of Justice's Title II guidance) and walked council through exceptions for archived content and pre-existing social posts.
Brown demonstrated two tools the city has deployed: a Recite Me toolbar on the website that provides text-to-speech, focus text for dyslexic readers, font and color adjustments, and translation; and a PDF "doc access" toolbar that can transform complex PDFs into an accessible view and offer live-assistance to users struggling with a hard-to-read document. During the demo Brown said the tools allow page summarization and on-the-fly simplification to help users with cognitive disabilities.
"We have met, and actually exceeded, compliance," Brown said, noting the city chose a two-tool approach because no single product handled both web and PDF accessibility well in their evaluation. Council members praised staff for a practical, resource-conscious implementation that balances limited budgets and compliance timelines. One council member asked how much staff time the rollout required; staff said the project took many months of meetings and fine-tuning and credited administrative staff who led implementation.
The council took no formal vote on the presentation; staff indicated the tools will remain in place and departments will coordinate training and use policies going forward.
