Website
accessibility

Website accessibility in plain words

Website accessibility means building a site that people with disabilities can perceive, operate and understand. That includes someone using a screen reader because they're blind, someone who navigates with a keyboard because of a tremor, someone who enlarges text to 200%, someone with colour blindness, and a lot of older customers whose eyesight and fine motor control aren't what they were. In a country with an ageing population, that's a large share of your potential customers.

The international reference is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG, published by the W3C. Version 2.0 came out in 2008, 2.1 in 2018 and 2.2 in 2023. Each is organized into levels A, AA and AAA. Level AA is the common target for business websites.

AODA: what Ontario requires

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act sets standards for organizations operating in Ontario. Its information and communications standard requires public sector organizations, and private and non-profit organizations with 50 or more employees, to make their public websites and web content conform to WCAG 2.0 Level AA, with a few exceptions such as live captions and pre-recorded audio descriptions. Smaller organizations aren't covered by that website rule, though AODA has other obligations depending on size.

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't give legal opinions. What I do is build sites so that WCAG 2.x AA is the baseline, which covers the technical side of the AODA website requirement. The AODA website accessibility guide explains the rules in more detail.

Elsewhere in Canada

Outside Ontario, provinces are at different stages: Manitoba, Nova Scotia and British Columbia have their own accessibility laws, with standards being developed and phased in. Federally regulated organizations, such as banks, telecoms and interprovincial transport, fall under the Accessible Canada Act. Even where no rule applies to you, an accessible site is easier for everyone and tends to perform better in search, because search engines read structure much like assistive technology does.

What I check on every site

• Colour contrast for text and buttons meets AA ratios
• Text can be resized and the layout reflows on narrow screens without sideways scrolling
• All functions work with a keyboard, in a logical order, with a visible focus
• Headings follow a clear hierarchy; landmarks mark header, navigation, main content and footer
• Images have meaningful alt text; decorative images are hidden from screen readers
• Form fields have visible labels, errors are described in words, not only in red
• Touch targets are large enough for a thumb
• Motion respects the reduced-motion setting, and nothing flashes

I test with automated tools first, then manually with a keyboard and a screen reader, because automated tools catch only part of the issues.

Barriers I see most often

Light grey text on white backgrounds, because it looks elegant in a mockup. Buttons that say only "Click here" or "Learn more", which mean nothing to a screen reader user jumping between links. Pop-ups that trap keyboard focus. Menus that open only on mouse hover. Phone numbers placed in images. Each one is easy to avoid during design and annoying to fix after launch.

Content you add later

A site can launch accessible and slowly drift as new content is added: images without alt text, headings chosen for their size, PDFs scanned as images. During training I show you how to keep new content accessible, and the edit panel asks for alt text when you upload an image. Accessible design overlaps a lot with good UX/UI design, so it rarely feels like extra work.

Accessibility and Quebec

I build and write sites in English; French versions are outside my work. If your organization serves Quebec and your own team or translator produces a French version, it needs the same accessibility as the English one: language attributes set correctly so screen readers pronounce text properly, translated alt text and form messages. Rules on French content itself are covered in Quebec French-language website rules.