Partners in Accessibility
Our Services
We partner with clients to guide them on their journey toward making their technology fully accessible. Ensuring a site (a website, portal or application) is accessible can be a challenge. Our Evaluate, Remediate and Educate (ERE) methodology is a dynamic, circular approach designed to foster continuous improvement in accessibility.
Evaluate
We start by assessing the current state of accessibility within your site. This involves using tools to identify barriers that prevent equal access for all users, particularly those with disabilities. Items like alternative text for images, proper colour contrasts and many more are evaluated.
Remediate
Once gaps are identified, the focus shifts to remediation, where these barriers are addressed through design, technical, and operational fixes, ensuring accessibility standards are met. Some of these fixes could be foundational given the framework or theme your site is based on.
Educate
Finally, education plays a crucial role. It involves empowering teams and stakeholders with the knowledge and tools to prevent future accessibility issues, fostering a culture of inclusivity. These best practices need to be used to keep your site compliant.
What is IT accessibility anyway?
Web and App accessibility refers to the practice of designing and developing websites so that they can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities.
This involves making content perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for individuals who may have visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive impairments and may be using assistive technologies. Key aspects of web and app accessibility include providing text alternatives for images, keyboard-friendly navigation, captions for video content, and ensuring compatibility with screen readers and other assistive technologies. The goal is to create an inclusive digital experience that allows equal access to information and functionality for all users.
Is my website compliant?
To check if your website is accessibility-compliant, start by following the WCAG 2.1 guidelines (Level AA is most common). Use automated tools like WAVE or Axe to detect basic issues, and manually test for keyboard navigation, screen reader compatibility, and color contrast. Ensure features like alt text for images, proper form labels, and responsive design are in place. For a thorough evaluation, consider an accessibility audit from experts and testing with real users with disabilities to catch deeper issues.
It’s the law. What is the AODA?
Making websites AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) compliant ensures that digital content is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. Compliance involves following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which focus on providing alternatives for visual and auditory content, ensuring website navigation is intuitive, and making interactive elements like forms usable with assistive technologies. This improves usability for a diverse audience and helps businesses avoid legal issues while fostering inclusivity.
ACCESSIBILITY OVERLAYS
Overlays are not the solution you are looking for.
Accessibility overlays for websites are often criticized for being a “quick fix” that claims to solve complex accessibility issues, but they tend to fall short. Instead of addressing the underlying code and design problems that make a site inaccessible, these overlays add a layer of functionality that often doesn’t meet the needs of users with disabilities. Overlays can interfere with assistive technologies, cause confusing interactions, and may give website owners a false sense of compliance with accessibility standards. Genuine accessibility requires thoughtful, built-in design, not superficial add-ons.
How can we help?
Let’s have a chat.
Make your digital world accessible and empower every user of your website or app. Schedule a FREE 30-minute chat on making your IT solutions inclusive.
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