About one in four Canadians aged 15 and over has a disability, according to Statistics Canada. Many of them will meet your business online first. The good news is that the most common problems are among the easiest to fix.
The problems we find most
- Text that’s too faint. Light grey on white looks elegant and is hard to read for many people — and for everyone on a phone in sunlight.
- Images with no description. A screen reader can’t see a photo; it reads its “alt text”. Without it, the image is silent — or the file name is read out.
- Buttons and links with no name. An icon-only button (a magnifying glass, a menu) needs a label a screen reader can say.
- Forms without labels. Placeholder text that disappears when you type isn’t a label.
- Things you can’t reach with a keyboard. Menus and pop-ups that only open with a mouse lock some people out entirely.
- Headings used for looks. Screen-reader users jump between headings to find their way; headings chosen for their size break that.
What WCAG is
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international standard. Version 2.2 is the current one, and “level AA” is the level most rules and organizations aim for. It’s organized around four ideas: content people can perceive, controls they can operate, pages they can understand, and code that works with assistive technology.
The rules in Canada
The Accessible Canada Act applies to federally regulated organizations. In Ontario, the AODA requires many organizations’ websites to meet WCAG. British Columbia’s Accessible British Columbia Act is phasing in standards, starting with the public sector. Even where no rule applies to you yet, an accessible site reaches more customers and is easier for everyone to use.
How to check
Automated tests catch many common problems quickly — contrast, missing labels, missing alt text — but not all of them. A good approach is an automated test to find the bulk of the issues, then a person checking the key pages with a keyboard and a screen reader.
Our site audit tests the pages people visit most in a real browser against WCAG 2.2 AA, and explains each issue and how to fix it. Or start with a free report.