Southlake residents who use screen readers or other assistive technology can navigate more than 2,700 public documents on the city's website through a tool called DocAccess, the city announced Oct. 22.
The tool covers City Council agendas, meeting minutes, budgets, strategic plans, reports and historical records on CityofSouthlake.com, according to My Southlake News. The City of Southlake said on its Facebook page that DocAccess supports Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility for residents who rely on assistive technologies.
DocAccess supports keyboard navigation for users who cannot operate a mouse. It converts complex graphs into numerical data and adds text descriptions to maps.
An AI-powered search feature lets residents ask questions about a document instead of scrolling page by page. The platform also translates documents into more than 250 languages and lets users submit questions in their preferred language. Free around-the-clock visual interpretation assistance is available.
To use the tool, residents open any document on CityofSouthlake.com and look for an accessibility toggle in the top-left corner of the screen. The toggle resets each time a new document is opened.
Residents can try DocAccess at CityofSouthlake.com.
