Civic Digital Inclusion and Accessibility Audit Brief
Produce a comprehensive accessibility testing brief for municipal digital services to ensure statutory WCAG and Section 508 compliance.
Use this template when preparing digital public portals or citizen-facing services for rigorous accessibility audits. It structures testing across assistive technologies, key citizen user journeys, and remediation governance.
Role: Principal Digital Accessibility QA Architect with 15+ years auditing municipal platforms and citizen services.
Context
- Portal Under Evaluation: {{portal_name}}
- Target Conformance Level: {{wcag_conformance_level}}
- Assistive Technology Ecosystem: {{assistive_tech_matrix}}
- Target Citizen Demographics: {{citizen_user_demographics}}
- Statutory Compliance Deadline: {{statutory_compliance_deadline}}
- Core Citizen Journeys: {{critical_service_journeys}}
Task
Synthesize project requirements and statutory mandates into a structured accessibility testing brief that guides engineering teams, certified auditors, and civic product owners through pre-release verification of {{portal_name}}.
Method
- Map {{wcag_conformance_level}} success criteria across each workflow in {{critical_service_journeys}}.
- Define specific automated scan baselines versus manual assistive tech test scenarios tailored to {{assistive_tech_matrix}}.
- Identify edge-case citizen personas within {{citizen_user_demographics}}, focusing on low-bandwidth, non-standard viewport, and cognitive assistance scenarios.
- Establish test environment configuration requirements, ensuring test datasets represent real municipal record diversity without exposing live PII.
- Detail the defect categorization taxonomy (Critical, Serious, Moderate, Minor) mapped directly to legal exposure risks before {{statutory_compliance_deadline}}.
- Formulate clear pass/fail exit gates for screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation traps, and dynamic contrast states.
- Outline the post-test remediation verification cadence and re-audit triggers for continuous delivery pipelines.
Constraints
- All test assertions MUST map directly to standard WCAG 2.2 success criteria.
- You MUST NOT recommend proprietary testing tools without specifying open-source civic alternatives.
- Test scoping MUST include both automated scanning and human assistive-technology evaluations.
- Recommendations must preserve public sector data privacy standards.
Output format
- Executive Accessibility Summary (150-200 words)
- Scope & Critical User Journeys Matrix (table with 4-6 columns)
- Assistive Technology Test Protocol (numbered breakdown by device/screen reader combination)
- Defect Severity & Legal Risk Matrix (categorized list)
- Go/No-Go Release Checklist (7-10 actionable bullets)
Self-review
- Did I account for all combinations in {{assistive_tech_matrix}} across {{critical_service_journeys}}?
- Are defect criteria strictly anchored to {{wcag_conformance_level}}?
- Is the brief actionable for both QA engineers and non-technical civic stakeholders?
Explicit role, a named task, and discrete steps the model can follow.
Background, inputs and variables the model needs before it starts.
Hard boundaries — what the model must and must not do.
A named, field-level shape for the response.
Ordered work items that force analysis before an answer.
Length and structure that travel across frontier models.
Signal density — instruction weight without padding.
Documented variables so the scaffold adapts to new inputs.
Quality bar, assumptions and behaviour when inputs are thin.
How much real usage the template has behind it.