What Do The New WCAG Regulations Mean For Me And My Business?
The Ontario government is ramping up their efforts to ensure the province is as accessible as possible for all residents.
Along with removing barriers in the physical world, they are also putting a lot of effort in to ensuring that the online world is accessible to everyone. Accessibility involves a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities.
With these escalated efforts have come new regulations that many people may not be aware of yet.
These regulations and additional recommendations have been put forward in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
They have structured these regulations in a three-tiered system: A, AA, and AA. As time progresses, businesses that are eligible will be expected to catch up to the most recent tier.
Tier “A” has been in circulation since New Year’s Day in 2014 and Tier “AA” will be put into practice in 2021.
Does This Apply To Me And My Business?
You may be asking yourself: “Does this apply to all businesses, and if not, which ones?”
Well, the stipulations of who must comply are actually rather straightforward! If you are a private or non-profit organization with 50+ employees or are a public sector organization of any size, you must be in compliance.
As of right now, you must only meet the Tier “A” requirements. But 2021 is coming fast, and along with it, the Tier “AA” requirements.
Why Are These Regulations Important?
The answer to this question is simple. We live in a society with a varied and diverse population. Not only in race or ethnicity, but in abilities; whether physical or mental. And everyone has the right to accessibility.
There are many who live every day with disabilities and often those disabilities can make what may seem like a simple task variably more difficult.
More obvious scenarios, like having subtitles on your videos for those with auditory limitations, or providing audio versions of your text for those with visual impairments, come to mind. But there are many less obvious factors to consider that you may have never even thought of.
And these new regulations have been put in to place to ensure that all residents of Ontario can access, navigate and interact with your website, no matter their abilities.
According to Stats Canada, almost 15% of Ontarians (that comes out to 1 in 7 people!) are living with a disability, with that number rising every day as more and more of our population become seniors.
As a business owner, by not complying you are putting yourself at risk of alienating a large portion of the population as well as having penalties levied against you by the Ontario Government.
What Do These Regulations Cover?
Everything.
From ensuring text content can be presented in alternative methods, to making sure any interactive media has alternative presentation methods and leaves sufficient time for those that might require longer, to creating visual media that does not induce seizures, and so much more.
While much of the regulations cover media content, there are many design/navigation aspects that must be considered.
There is so much more than we could possibly cover in one article, so we highly recommend you take the time to read the official regulations on the Ontario Government website.
How Can I Tell If My Website Is Accessible?
Whether you have an in-house web developer or not, when it comes to accessibility, it is always best to get an outside opinion of how easy your website is to use.
Obviously, this third-party opinion would be best to come from someone who lives every day of their life with a disability, as they can offer a viewpoint that you likely can’t.
But barring that, having someone who does not work with your website every day or was not involved in the development of it take some time to comb through it, can be an invaluable perspective.
Depending on the proficiency of your web developer (if you have one) you may still want to go with an outside team to get your website into accessibility compliance. Having a team that has experience in accessibility issues, or even better, specializes in it, can ease a lot of the burden on you and allow you to have the time you need to run your business efficiently.
We have devised a checklist that goes over any and all aspects of your website that you will want to consider when assessing its accessibility to those with disabilities.
Check it out! Knowing there is a problem is the first step to correcting it!
How Do I Bring My Website Into Compliance?
Once you have identified the problem areas and potential issues on your website, it is time to take action!
Jump on the site to start fixing it. Bring it to the attention of your web developer.
Whatever you need to do! It is the law.
You may be asking yourself, “What do I do if I do not have the time for it or do not have someone who has web development skills? I can’t handle this all on my own! What can I do?”
The best thing to do would be to hire an outside web development team. A team that specializes in these issues could save you a lot of time and stress, as they will know exactly what needs to be done to bring your website into compliance.
We hope this was helpful to you and your business and please do share this with anyone you know who could be affected by it.