About 15% of the world's population, or 1 billion people, live with a disability. With internet penetration steadily growing at double-digit annual rates, the inclusive practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities is becoming increasingly important. Organizations, such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), have set guidelines on how to create accessible websites. Governments across the world have taken notice of web accessibility. In Ontario, Canada, the Provincial Government has created the "Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act" (AODA), which includes accessibility for websites. This presentation was designed to help Ontario municipalities with web accessibility. Check it out if any of these questions are of interest to you: - Why make our municipal website accessible? - When do we have to make it accessible? - What makes it accessible? - How to make it accessible?

1. Web Accessibility for
Municipalities
How to meet compliance requirements and
better engage all your citizens
July 2013

2. www.intelliware.com
Overview
It’s all about municipal website accessibility
• Part 1: Why make your municipal website accessible?
• Part 2: When do you have to make it accessible?
• Part 3: What makes it accessible?
• Part 4: How to make it accessible?
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3. Part 1: Why make your municipal website accessible?
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Accessible websites needed for people with disabilities
• 15% of the world's population, or
1 billion people, live with a
disability1
• They are the world's largest
minority2
• Individuals spend on average 8
years living with a disability2
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1 World Health Organization, World report on disability,
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2011/WHO_NMH_VIP_11.01_eng.pdf
2 United Nations Factsheet on Persons with Disabilities: http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=18
Note on 2: applies to countries with life expectancies over 70 years, such as Canada

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Canada’s disabled population: increasing with age
• 56% of seniors over
75 have a disability1
• Today 1 in 7
Ontarians have a
disability
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1 Public Health Agency of Canada, The Senior Audience: Large, Growing and Diverse http://www.phac-
aspc.gc.ca/seniors-aines/publications/public/various-varies/afcomm-commavecaines/3-eng.php
Source: 2006 Participation and Activity Limitation Survey

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Reach a growing and affluent group
• By 2031, 6+ million Ontarians
either be living with a disability or
will be over age 55, accounting for
40% of all income1
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1 Government of Ontario, Why Accessibility is good for Ontario
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/documents/en/mcss/accessibility/Ont_InfoGraph-EN.pdf

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Why change? The case for accessibility
Save money
• Lower cost to serve through better access
to information and services
• Comply with Ontario government legislation
to avoid fines of upwards of $100,000 per
day1
• Savings from improved server performance
and decreased site maintenance2
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1 9th Sphere, Ontario Website Owners Must Know – Make Your Website AODA Compliant
http://www.9thsphere.com/blog/aoda-compliance/
2 Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization: Overview
http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/Overview.html

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Why change? The case for accessibility
Engage your citizens
• Enable persons with disabilities and older users to interact with you
online instead of more costly ways (offline)
Provide better information
• Accessible websites have better search results1
• Make it easier to inform your citizens of community events and issues
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1 Government of Ontario, Making your website more accessible
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/en/mcss/publications/accessON/accessible_websites/make.aspx

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Legislation
Accessibility for Ontarians with
Disabilities Act (AODA)
• AODA – Ontario Regulation
429/07 Accessibility for Ontarians
with Disabilities Act
• Customer Service Standard came into
effect January 1, 2012
• Applies to municipal websites
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10. Part 2: When do you have to make it accessible?
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Legislation timeline – when you need to comply
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1 Ontario MEDTE, Make your website accessible,
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/en/mcss/programs/accessibility/info_sheets/info_comm/website.aspx
• Applies to public sector organizations, businesses and non-profit
organizations with 50+ staff1
Type of Content Compliance Requirements Deadline
New public websites and
web content
WCAG 2.0 Level A 2014
All public websites and
web content posted after
January 1, 2012
WCAG 2.0 Level AA
Excludes captions and pre-recorded
audio descriptions
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What is a “new” website?
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1 Ontario MEDTE, Making your website accessible,
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/documents/en/mcss/accessibility/iasr_guides/website_en.pdf
• A “new” website is1:
o A website with a new domain name (e.g. www.newbusiness.ca)
o A website undergoing a “significant refresh”:
• Changing more than 50% of the content, design or technology of the website
Content Design Technology
Creating, rewriting or
reorganizing more than 50%
of the site’s content, such as
graphics, text, widgets, etc.
Changing more than
50% of the design
elements, such as
layout, navigation,
placement and style.
Changing more than 50% of the web
publishing platform/model such as the
content management system (CMS),
Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) or HTML
structure.

13. Part 3: What makes it accessible?
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What is an accessible website?
A website that is designed based on 4
principles1
1. Perceivable: Information and user interface
components must be presented to users in a way that
are easy to perceive
2. Operable: User interface components and navigation
must be functional and useful
3. Understandable: Information and the operation of
the user interface must be easy to comprehend
4. Robust: Content must be robust enough that it can
be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user
agents, including assistive technologies
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1 W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/experiences

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Principle #1: Perceivable
Information and user interface components must be presented to users in a
way that is easy to perceive.1
• Barriers common to mobile device users and people with disabilities:
o Information conveyed solely with color
o Large pages or large images
o Multimedia with no captions
o Audio-only prompts (beeps) for important information (warnings, errors)
o Non-text objects (images, sound, video) with no text alternative
o Text entry
o Content formatted using tables or CSS, and reading order not correct when linearized
(for example when CSS or tables not rendered)
o Information conveyed only using CSS (visual formatting)
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1 W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/experiences

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Principle #2: Operable
User interface components and navigation must be functional and useful.1
• Barriers common to mobile device users and people with disabilities:
o Mouse required for interaction and navigation
o Scripting required to operate content
o Special plug-in required
o Missing or inappropriate page title
o Inconsistency between focus (tab) order and logical document content
sequence
o Non descriptive link label
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1 W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/experiences

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Principle #3: Understandable
Information and the operation of the user interface must be easy to
comprehend. 1
• Barriers common to mobile device users and people with disabilities:
o Long words, long and complex sentences, jargon
o Content spawning new windows without warning user
o Blinking, moving, scrolling or auto-updating content
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1 W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/experiences

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Principle #4: Robust
Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide
variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.1
• Barriers common to mobile device users and people with disabilities:
o Invalid or unsupported markup
o Scripting required to generate content
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1 W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/experiences

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Examples of conformance
• A school board has posted a video on its website
to explain their adult learning programs; the video
is captioned for people with hearing loss1
• Textual equivalents provided for images – used
for screen readers
• Label, underline or differentiate hyperlinks for
those who are colour-blind
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1 Government of Ontario, The Accessibility Standard for Information and Communications
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/en/mcss/programs/accessibility/info_comm/index.aspx

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Examples of conformance
• Larger text and images, or the ability to enlarge
text and images (screen magnification)
• Clickable areas made larger to assist those
who cannot maneuver a mouse easily
• For content pages with time limits, users should
be able to turn off, adjust or extend the time
limit unless the limit is essential and would
invalidate the activity
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1 Government of Ontario, The Accessibility Standard for Information and Communications
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/en/mcss/programs/accessibility/info_comm/index.aspx

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Examples of conformance
• Include a mechanism to allow users to identify
definitions of idioms, jargon and abbreviations
• Use consistent navigational mechanisms on web
pages – content appears and operates in
predictable ways
• Website content should be “conversion ready” –
content must be readily convertible into an
accessible format
More information can be found here: WCAG 2.0
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22. Part 4: How to make it accessible
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AODA Compliance Wizard
• This Government of Ontario tool
helps you determine your
municipality’s compliance
requirements
• Free to use
• Takes less than 5 minutes to
complete
• AODA Compliance Wizard
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AODA Compliance Wizard

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Accessibility compliance tips
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1 Government of Ontario, Make your website accessible
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/en/mcss/programs/accessibility/info_sheets/info_comm/website.aspx
Tips from the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Trade And
Employment (MEDTE), the ministry responsible for the implementation
of AODA1:
• Talk to your organization’s web developer about complying with the
requirements
• Use MEDTE’s Making your website more accessible guide to help
you work with web developers, whether they are in-house staff or
external contractors

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Accessibility compliance tips
• Review the software used to support accessibility on your website
• You may need to repair the software to meet the WCAG 2.0 requirements
• Make your web content accessible at Level AA now
• Reduces the amount of changes you’ll have to make to your website down the
road
• May reduce requests you receive for accessible formats or communications
supports
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1 Government of Ontario, Make your website accessible
http://www.mcss.gov.on.ca/en/mcss/programs/accessibility/info_sheets/info_comm/website.aspx

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Resources to help you comply
• The Government of Ontario:
o Accessibility Standard for Customer
Service: employer handbook
o A Guide to the Integrated Accessibility
Standards Regulation, Section 14,
Accessible Websites and Web Content
• W3C’s Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0:
o 12 guidelines that are organized
under 4 principles: perceivable,
operable, understandable, and robust
• Free Tools:
o Achecker: checks single HTML pages
for conformance with accessibility
standards
o ChromaNope: simulates how a website
looks to one with a form of colour-
blindness
o WC3’s markup validator: checks
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and
(X)HTML documents
o Juicy Studio: tests the readability of a
website
o Complete list of web accessibility
evaluation tools from WC3
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Want to learn how the City
of Kingston improved its
municipal website with the
help of Intelliware?
27
Check out:
www.intelliware.com
/intelliware-
launches-hosted-
portal-solution-for-
municipalities/