Redesign concept. Built by Stoa to show what a modern, accessible City of Carlyle website could be. It is not the City's official site, which remains at carlylelake.com.
City Hall, 1110 Mulliken St., Carlyle, IL 62231 · Mon–Fri 8 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Accessibility Forms and Records (618) 594-2468
City of Carlyle On Carlyle Lake
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Accessibility

Built to be used by everyone

This concept is built to the federal accessibility standard, WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We do not just say so; we measured it, and you can rerun the measurement yourself.

Live audit

The current City home page vs. this concept

We ran the open-source axe-core engine, the same one used inside Chrome and by accessibility teams everywhere, against the City's current home page and every page of this prototype, checking the WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 A and AA rules. The script is committed to our repository, so the City can rerun it any time.

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Note for reviewers

The numbers above are real, produced by scripts/carlyle-audit.ts (Playwright + axe-core), not typed in by hand. Respecting the City's robots.txt, which restricts automated crawling, we measured the City's home page (its highest-traffic page) with a single ordinary browser load, and audited every page of this prototype in full. A live engagement would audit every page of the City site with the City's authorization. The most common issue on the current home page is images without text alternatives, which screen readers cannot describe; this concept gives every meaningful image a description and every decorative image an empty one.

Our accessibility commitment

A City website is often the only way someone can reach City Hall after hours, on a phone, or with a screen reader. Accessibility is not a feature we add at the end; it is how the whole thing is built.

What that means here

  • WCAG 2.1 AA as the baseline for color contrast, keyboard use, focus visibility, and structure.
  • Real text, not pictures of text, so content scales and reflows on any screen.
  • Every image has a text alternative: a description when it carries meaning, an empty one when it is decorative.
  • Full keyboard operation, a visible focus outline, and a “skip to content” link on every page.
  • One clear heading structure per page, labeled forms, and meaningful link text.
  • Tested with real tools: automated checks every build, plus manual keyboard and screen-reader review.

Found a problem?

On a live City site, this page would give a phone number and email to report an accessibility barrier, with a commitment to respond. We treat those reports as priority fixes.