How to Make Your Website Accessible

During COVID-19 the need for accessibility of websites and apps became all the more important, since so many people became dependent on web technology e.g. for food delivery, doctor visits and school. It is very likely that more and more websites will be scrutinized for accessibility.

What is the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)?

The AODA requires that public-facing websites meet  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level A and AA criteria. The guidelines include measures for many different disabilities. For instance, there are specific guidelines for video captions for people with hearing impairments, high contrast colours for those with visual impairment, and descriptive sound for people who cannot read or hear text.

Go to https://www.accessibilitychecker.org, type the URL of your website, and click “check website”. You will get a detailed overview of any issues your website is experiencing where it comes to accessibility.

It is important to note that the AODA is not a stagnant piece of legislation. Accessibility guidelines are updated regularly as the internet continues to grow and evolve.

How to make your website AODA compliant

Of course you can hire a company or a web accessibility expert to make the necessary changes to the website. Depending on the accessibility issues, this may cost a few hundred dollars or many thousands. In some cases it’s more expensive than simply creating a new website.

There are web accessibility plugins that can be installed on the website, but they typically don’t achieve full compliance, and often only achieve about 20% of the WCAG recommendations.

At Mawazo we offer the accessibility solution developed by accessiBe. This is an Artificial Intelligence solution that is implemented on the website and achieves full AODA compliance within 48 hours. The platform provides a full audit, and assists its clients when they are faced with a legal challenge of their website accessibility. The annual fee for this solution is $490 (~C$660) for websites under 1,000 pages, and $1,490 (~C$2,020) for websites under 10,000 pages.

In Canada, there aren't many accessibility lawsuits yet, but this number is likely to increase over the next few years.

AODA non-compliance can cost your business significantly in time and resources. The AODA’s penalties are steep and can include a fine of up to $100,000 per day for corporations. Fines typically are much lower, but for a small company even a $10,000 fine can be a very heavy burden.

Making your website compliant is much less expensive than the cost of a fine, so there really isn't any good excuse for leaving your site open to the risk of a lawsuit.