Web Accessibility

“What do you mean my website isn’t accessible because of the visual design?” the live audit client asked with irritation. I responded “Some of the colours you’re using make it difficult for people to see the information. In fact, the graph you’re using makes it impossible for 1 in 12 men who are colour blind to use.” “But we spent a lot of money on design“, the client explains, “why wasn’t the graphic designer aware of this; why didn’t the designer design for accessibility?” It’s a hard question to answer. But as of this year, many more organizations will be …

Want to know if your website is accessible or not?  One of the simplest ways to check is imagining you can’t use a mouse. Go to your website right now and try using only a keyboard to navigate. Use the tab key to move around. Go on, I’ll wait… Did you know where you were at all times? No? That means whoever built that website likely didn’t take accessibility into account. It’s a flag. It also means if you’re selling a product or service you may be excluding paying customers. And it could be even more serious. I had a …

We recently were asked to comment on web design trends for 2020. Top of our list: web accessibility. Why? Because for businesses in Ontario with 50 or more employees, an accessible website won’t be an option starting next year. Ignoring accessibility will cost companies money. Why?  Aside from the potential legal fines, businesses that ignore accessibility are cutting out 15% (at least) of their potential market.  I haven’t found a business owner yet who is happy to leave that kind of money on the table. What are the other trends? The folks at Digital Ducats Inc. summarized these web design …

The AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilites Act) has been around since 2005. The Act set out several deadlines requiring organizations to make their websites accessible. This year, a major deadline is looming. What’s the deadline? January 1, 2021 Who does it impact? All organizations in the province of Ontario with 50 or more employees What’s the requirement? All websites and web content must be accessible and meet WCAG 2.0 AA. Where do I start? If you haven’t refreshed your website in a few years, you may want to consider starting with a new infrastructure instead of trying to patch …

What is an accessible website? An accessible website is a site that can be used by all of your visitors, including those with disabilities, no matter what tools they use to navigate the web.  Some of your visitors may have reduced vision and use a screen reader to listen to websites. Other visitors may have limited motor skills and use a keyboard instead of a mouse. Accessible websites allow all users to access the information they need with the least difficulty possible. How do I make a website accessible? Making websites accessible is not difficult if you start some basics: …

WordPress has become one of the most common platforms for websites and accessibility-ready WordPress themes are a positive new trend in that growing market.  Almost 25% of websites are now powered by the popular CMS (Content Management System). With it’s increasing popularity has come a focus on the accessibility of those sites and that’s great news. Thankfully, for the past few years, a team of dedicated volunteers has been driving the improvement of both the administrative back-end of the platform along with the themes that are available for site owners.  In fact, there are now almost 100 accessibility-ready WordPress themes …

And another call comes in. They all seem to be the same lately. Caller: Hi, I was referred to you by a mutual colleague. I /our agency recently built a website and it’s ready to launch. We discovered that we needed the site to conform to AA web accessibility standards. Can you check the site for us and tell me what would it take to make it comply?   Me: It’s always best to put the chocolate chips in the cookie before baking them (shout out to Billy Gregory for that gem). Caller: (nervous chuckle) Good analogy.   Me: Have …

The call or email goes something like this:  “Help!  I’ve been hacked. My website has been down for over a day now. We are losing business!” We are starting to see what we predict will be a very bad trend that will affect a large number of the organizations that are buying WordPress websites. And those organizations have no idea …. until it’s too late. It’s not unusual for the average web designer to buy WordPress themes, customize them, and put them on cheap hosting. Everyone is proud of the new website.  It looks great. Your organization puts out an announcement, everyone compliments your …

Having an accessible website means that your site is built in a way that enables anyone with a disability to interact with it. The Ontario AODA legislation kicked in January 1, 2014.  It is now mandatory for any company with 50 or more employees to make their new website or new web content accessible to meet WCAG 2.0 standards. The 370,000 businesses in Ontario with less than 50 employees need to pay attention as well. What level of WCAG 2.0 should you meet? Think of WCAG 2.0 as the ISO standard for web accessibility. It is the technical standard web designers use …

As of January 1st, 2014 the next phase of the AODA (Accessibility for Ontario Disabilities Act) came into effect and there are 2 important dates to note with regard to web accessibility: First important Date –  Effective January 1st, 2014: If you have more than 50 employees and you  launch a “new website” or your existing website undergoes a “significant refresh” then your site and any of its content published after January 1st, 2012 must conform to WCAG 2.0  Level A. So if you have more than 50 employees and need to make changes to your website now you need  to interpret the new …