Web Accessibility & Compliance Auditing, Remediation Guidance & Ongoing Monitoring

Websites fail accessibility standards in ways that are invisible to sighted users but completely block screen readers, keyboard users, and people with cognitive disabilities. This service combines automated scanning, expert manual audits, developer remediation guidance, and continuous monitoring to keep websites WCAG-compliant as they evolve.

Service Owner Sydney Shimko (Accessibility Practice Lead)

Category Accessibility

Cadence Monthly

Agentic Status Planned — wcag-scanner

Compass Internal Service Reference Audience: Northwoods team Tools: Google Lighthouse • axe-core • WAVE • NVDA / JAWS (manual) Related: PDF Accessibility (also Sydney) • CWV & Performance

What this service is

The Web Accessibility & Compliance service helps organizations ensure their websites are usable by people with disabilities and meet WCAG 2.1/2.2, ADA Title II/III, and Section 508 standards. Automated tools catch roughly 30–40% of accessibility issues—the rest require expert manual review of keyboard navigation, screen reader behavior, color contrast in context, ARIA implementation, and dynamic component patterns.

Northwoods offers a clear progression: a free automated homepage scan that surfaces the most critical WCAG violations in minutes, a paid full-site audit with expert manual review of key templates and user journeys, a comprehensive remediation engagement where Sydney’s team provides developer-ready fix guidance and validates the corrections, and an ongoing retainer that continuously monitors the site and catches regressions from CMS updates, new content, or third-party script changes.

Why clients care: Accessibility barriers prevent real users from completing real tasks—a resident can’t submit a service request, a student can’t register for a class, a patient can’t book an appointment. Beyond usability, the regulatory environment is accelerating: the DOJ finalized ADA Title II rules in 2024 requiring WCAG 2.1 AA compliance for state and local government websites, and private sector enforcement under Title III continues to generate thousands of demand letters annually. Most organizations don’t know how many barriers their websites contain until someone complains—or files suit.

Highest-interest audiences: Government agencies and municipalities face the most acute and time-bound compliance pressure—DOJ’s 2024 Title II rule sets hard deadlines (2026 for large entities, 2027 for smaller ones). School districts and higher education institutions fall under Section 508 and Title II simultaneously. Healthcare organizations (ADA Title III, patient access obligations) and financial services firms (increasing DOJ scrutiny) are strong secondary markets. Any Northwoods client on Titan CMS is a natural prospect—we can audit and monitor what we built.

Sydney Shimko

Accessibility Compliance Practice Lead

Sydney leads Northwoods’ accessibility compliance services, specializing in WCAG website compliance, ADA and Section 508 requirements, and large-scale remediation programs for public sector organizations. She works with government agencies, school districts, healthcare organizations, and enterprise clients to implement accessibility programs that combine automated testing, expert review, and scalable remediation workflows. At S-tier, Sydney conducts the manual template audit. At M-tier, she leads the developer remediation engagement directly and validates fixes. At L-tier, her team monitors the site continuously and coordinates with client development teams to resolve regressions.

Service tiers — F / S / M / L

F — Free / Quick Scan

Accessibility Snapshot

Free

Agent-automated • Homepage + up to 10 pages • <10 minutes

✓ Automated WCAG 2.1 AA scan (homepage)
✓ Missing / empty alt text detection
✓ Heading hierarchy check
✓ Color contrast failures (automated)
✓ Form label and input association check
✓ Skip navigation link present
✓ ARIA landmark regions check
✓ Page language attribute
✓ Accessibility category score (0–100, Red/Yellow/Green)

Scope: Homepage + up to 10 pages • Agent: wcag-scanner (planned) • No credentials needed

S — Paid Deeper Scan

Full-Site Audit

$1,500–$5,000

Manual template review • Key user journeys • Prioritized report

✓ Everything in Accessibility Snapshot
✓ Full-site automated scan (all pages)
✓ Manual review of key page templates (5–10)
✓ Keyboard navigation testing
✓ Form and service flow accessibility review
✓ ARIA implementation check
✓ Dynamic component review (modals, dropdowns)
✓ Prioritized issue report by WCAG criterion

Scope: Full site • 8–16 hrs effort • Sydney-led manual review

M — Audit & Remediation

Remediation Engagement

$5,000–$15,000

Developer-ready fixes • Screen reader testing • Validation

✓ Everything in Full-Site Audit
✓ Screen reader testing (NVDA / JAWS)
✓ Developer-ready remediation specs per issue
✓ Developer office hours with Sydney’s team
✓ Validation testing after fixes are applied
✓ VPAT / ACR documentation support
✓ Live walkthrough of findings with client team

Scope: Full site • 20–40 hrs effort • Requires dev access for validation

L — Retainer

Ongoing Compliance Program

Retainer

Monthly monitoring • Regression detection • Dashboard KPIs

✓ Everything in Remediation Engagement
✓ Monthly automated full-site scan
✓ Regression detection from CMS updates
✓ Remediation hours from client backlog budget
✓ Monthly compliance dashboard report
✓ Quarterly review with Sydney
✓ Developer team guidance and training
✓ VPAT / ACR maintenance support

Scope: Full site • Ongoing • 6–10 hrs/mo • Dashboard KPIs tracked

Government and public sector pricing note: Government agencies and municipalities typically require larger scopes—more page templates, multi-department sites, procurement documentation (VPAT/ACR), and governance advisory. Expect S-tier engagements to trend toward the upper end ($3,500–$5,000+) and L-tier retainers to run $3,500–$10,000/mo depending on site complexity and remediation volume. These budgets are frequently available through IT compliance line items or accessibility-specific grants.

What the agent checks

Check	F — Free	S — Audit	M — Remed.
Page Structure & Semantics
Heading hierarchy (H1→H2→H3 order)	✓	✓	✓
ARIA landmark regions present	✓	✓	✓
Page language attribute	✓	✓	✓
Semantic HTML usage (lists, tables, buttons)	—	✓	✓
Skip navigation link	✓	✓	✓
Navigation & Interaction
Keyboard accessibility (all interactive elements)	—	✓	✓
Focus order logical and visible	—	✓	✓
Focus indicator visible on all focusable elements	—	✓	✓
No keyboard traps	—	✓	✓
Forms & Service Flows
Form inputs have associated labels	✓	✓	✓
Error messages linked to fields	—	✓	✓
Required fields identified	—	✓	✓
Complete form user journey (keyboard + screen reader)	—	—	✓
Images & Media
Alt text present on all images	✓	✓	✓
Decorative images marked presentation	—	✓	✓
Video captions and audio transcripts	—	✓	✓
Visual Design & Color
Color contrast (automated — WCAG AA 4.5:1)	✓	✓	✓
Color contrast (manual — context-aware)	—	✓	✓
Information not conveyed by color alone	—	✓	✓
Dynamic Components
Modals and dialogs trap focus correctly	—	✓	✓
ARIA roles, states, and properties correct	—	✓	✓
Live region announcements work with screen readers	—	—	✓

✓ Included — Not included Note: automated tools catch ~30–40% of WCAG issues. Manual expert review at S+ is required to surface the rest.

How this service is delivered today

Step 1

Automated Scan

Lighthouse and axe-core run against all public pages. Automated issues are logged by WCAG criterion, severity, and element. This catches ~30–40% of real barriers—the foundation for the manual review.

Agent — wcag-scanner (planned)

Step 2

Manual Expert Review

Sydney reviews key page templates, forms, and user journeys manually: keyboard navigation, focus order, screen reader behavior, ARIA correctness, and dynamic component patterns. This surfaces what automation cannot.

Sydney — axe DevTools / NVDA

Step 3

Remediation & Validation

Developer-ready fix specifications delivered per issue. Sydney’s team holds office hours with client devs during fixes and validates corrections after deployment. VPAT/ACR documentation produced if required.

Sydney — Remediation Lead

Step 4

Ongoing Monitoring

Monthly automated scans detect regressions from CMS updates, new content, or third-party script changes. Issues are queued from the client’s remediation budget. Dashboard updated monthly; quarterly review with Sydney.

Agent + Sydney — Retainer

F-tier automation note: The wcag-scanner agent is currently planned, not in production. The automated checks (Lighthouse / axe-core) are highly automatable via API. Manual template review at S+ is not automatable—expert judgment on keyboard behavior, ARIA patterns, and screen reader compatibility cannot be reliably replaced by tools. Automation feasibility: HIGH for scanning and reporting; LOW for manual review and validation.

L-tier dashboard KPIs

For retainer clients, these metrics are tracked on the Compass dashboard and reviewed quarterly with Sydney. Government clients often share these reports with legal counsel or use them to demonstrate compliance efforts to regulators—the dashboard serves as an ongoing compliance record, not just an internal tool.

KPI	What it measures
Accessibility Category Score (0–100)	The client’s Accessibility score on the Compass effectiveness grid (0–100, banded Red/Yellow/Green), re-assessed each quarter. Government clients often have hard deadlines (DOJ Title II: 2026/2027). A rising score is the primary outcome metric for the program.
Total Accessibility Issues (Open vs. Closed)	Total open issues from the most recent audit, tracked against the prior period. Broken down by severity (critical, serious, moderate). Target: declining trend. New regressions from CMS updates are flagged separately from backlog items.
Critical Issues Backlog (WCAG A / AA)	Count of open WCAG A (must-fix) and AA (should-fix) violations. These are the issues most likely to surface in an ADA complaint or DOJ audit. Target: 0 open critical issues. Trended monthly to show velocity of remediation.
Regression Count (New Issues This Month)	Number of new accessibility issues introduced since the prior monthly scan. A non-zero count indicates development or content changes are introducing new barriers—triggers a review of publishing or deployment processes with Sydney.

Features & benefits

What makes this service distinctive

Free snapshot gives prospects immediate visibility into their compliance risk—automated, no friction
Expert manual review surfaces the 60–70% of issues automated tools cannot detect
Developer-ready fix specifications—not just issue descriptions—shorten remediation time
Screen reader testing with NVDA and JAWS validates real-world assistive technology compatibility
VPAT / ACR documentation support for organizations that need to demonstrate compliance to procurement or legal
Monthly regression detection catches issues introduced by CMS updates, new content, or third-party scripts
Government-specific expertise in DOJ Title II, Section 508, and state-level accessibility requirements
Works on any CMS—Titan, WordPress, HubSpot, Drupal, custom builds—Northwoods-built sites included
Dashboard documentation functions as an ongoing compliance record for legal defensibility

Client benefits

Know exactly which barriers are blocking users with disabilities from completing real tasks on your site
Reduce ADA, Section 508, and WCAG legal exposure with documented remediation efforts
Give developers specific, actionable fix instructions instead of a general issue list
Demonstrate ongoing compliance efforts with monthly reporting—critical for government and regulated industries
Stop regressions from CMS updates silently re-introducing accessibility barriers
Move from reactive (fixing after complaints) to proactive (catching issues before they reach users)

Cross-service relationships

Web Accessibility is one half of Sydney’s accessibility practice. The other half—PDF Accessibility—covers document remediation and compliance monitoring for PDFs published on the client’s website. Clients with both services active get a unified compliance view on the same dashboard: website and documents tracked together, with a single maturity level that reflects the full digital presence.

CWV & Performance overlap: Web accessibility audits frequently surface focus indicator and keyboard navigation issues that are tightly coupled to CSS and JavaScript performance. At L-tier, Sydney coordinates with the CWV service to ensure that performance optimizations don’t inadvertently remove focus styles or break keyboard navigation—a common regression pattern in image optimization and lazy-load implementations.

CMP / Privacy overlap: Consent banners and cookie preference centers must themselves be accessible—keyboard operable, screen-reader compatible, and compliant with WCAG. When a client has both CMP and Web Accessibility services active, Sydney reviews the consent UI as part of the accessibility audit and coordinates with the CMP team to ensure the implementation meets both compliance frameworks simultaneously.