St. Joseph County, Michigan recognizes the importance of making government services available to the largest audience possible and we have attempted to design a website that is accessible by everyone. In an effort to ensure equal access, St. Joseph County, Michigan has established guidelines for its web content liaisons so that information featured on its website is accessible to as many individuals as possible, including individuals with disabilities, as required under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
If you cannot fully access any information on this website, please contact us using any method below and inform us of the accessibility issue you are having. We will try to provide the content to you in an appropriate format or make the necessary improvements to make the information accessible.
You may request an accessible format or accessibility change:
- in person at the St. Joseph County Courthouse
- by calling (269) 467-5500
- by filling out the website contact us form
- or by emailing webmaster@stjosephcountymi.org
St. Joseph County DICE ADA Digital Compliance Dashboard — Phase completed, WCAG 2.1 AA and PDF/UA-1 standards achieved ahead of the April 2026 DOJ deadline.
St. Joseph County
ADA Digital Compliance Dashboard
Document remediation metrics
SJC-specific PDF/UA-1 pipeline results
Total documents remediated
748
SJC PDFs
Total pages remediated
9,922
Across all docs
Pass 1 avg. compliance score
95.3
out of 100
Pass breakdown — documents & pages
Pass 1 (Acrobat autotagging)
396 docs
3,506 pages
Avg. score: 95.3 / 100
Pass 2 (AI remediation)
352 docs
6,416 pages
Website redesign & web accessibility
Ongoing web compliance initiatives
Blocksy compliant theme
SJC successfully uses the "Blocksy" WordPress theme, documented by its developers to meet WCAG 2.1 standards out of the box.
AI alt-text automation
Custom WordPress plugin evaluates image content and embedded text using AI vision models to generate meaningful, contextual alt-text.
Accessibility testing
Targeting zero confirmed WCAG violations per page. Audits conducted using:
Financial impact & cost avoidance
Joint program ROI — internal vs. market equivalent
Market equivalent cost
~$50,448
~$2.00/page industry average
Internal cost
<$100
AI processing tokens only
Total savings
>$50,348
Zero marginal cost for future documents
GIS & interactive mapping
Transparency note on spatial data accessibility
⚠ Acknowledged industry-wide limitation
Canvas and WebGL map rendering produces no semantic structure for screen readers — a known barrier across the GIS industry. St. Joseph County has taken proactive steps to address this while next-generation solutions are developed.
Action taken
Legacy maps archived
Inaccessible legacy maps removed from all public-facing services.
Action taken
Human-assistance disclosure
Operational maps include an explicit disclosure offering alternative formats upon request.
Future goal
Next-gen accessible tools
Next-generation accessible spatial data tools are actively in development.