Following the Latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

The first review of the AODA’s Information and communications Standards became public in 2020. In this review, the AODA Information and Communications Standards Development Committee outlines improvements to make information and communications accessible for people with disabilities by 2025. The Committee recommends changes to the Information and Communications Standards, to identify, remove, and prevent accessibility barriers in information. In addition, the Committee recommends an alternative system for developing, updating, and enforcing AODA standards. This new system would affect the Information and Communications Standards, as well as other existing and future standards. This article will discuss the Committee’s recommendations for following the latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Following the Latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

The Information and Communications standards currently require public-sector organizations, and large private-sector organizations, to make their web content accessible. Organizations must do so by complying with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), level AA.

WCAG principles, guidelines, and criteria ensure that websites will be functional when people with disabilities browse them. For example, compliant websites include features such as:

• Consistent layouts
• Content that users can perceive in different ways, including:
  • Text
  • Audio
  • Videos
• Compatibility with various assistive technologies, including:
  • Hardware
  • Software
• Accessible ways for users to input information
• Ways to avoid online accessibility barriers, such as time limits or moving information

However, version 2.0 of these guidelines is long out of date. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created version 2.0 in 2008. The W3C released a new version of these guidelines, version 2.1, in 2018. This version includes all guidelines from Version 2.0, as well as new guidelines for:

• Displaying content in portrait and landscape orientations
• Online forms
• Designing text users can reformat
• Non-text colour contrast
• Content that appears and disappears
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Pointer gestures
• Status messages

Moreover, the W3C will continue to release new versions of the guidelines. Therefore, the Committee recommends that the Standards require organizations to comply with the most up-to-date version of WCAG.