AODA and Digital Accessibility

Our public websites and its contents must meet WCAG 2.0 AA by January 2021 as outlined in the Accessibility Standard for Information and Communications.

WCAG 2.0 is an internationally accepted standard for web accessibility developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It defines three levels of compliance – A, AA and AAA. Level A equates to basic website accessibility and level AAA is the highest level.

AODA and Carleton

According to AODA, Carleton is designated as a large public sector organization and the university’s requirements are:

New internet and web content: Compliance with Level A by 1 January 2014
All* internet and web content**: Compliance with Level AA by 1 January 2021

* excluding captions on live videos and audio descriptions for pre-recorded videos

** published after January 1, 2012

Sites published before 2012 in older systems are out of scope. “New websites” are those with a new domain name (e.g., carleton.ca/new or new.carleton.ca ) or existing websites that are having a complete overhaul, effectively changing more than half of the website. For example, when our new branded templates are imposed.

Internal Websites

In Carleton’s designation (large public sector organization) there is no mention of Intranet sites and sites behind logins (for example, Intranet, Carleton Central, internal websites, and the CRM).

In short:

We are not required to make our internal websites (intranet) accessible.
We don’t have to modify content posted before 2012.
If asked, we will need to work with individuals to make the content available to them in an alternate format such as large print or braille.

Making Carleton Websites Accessible

Web Services manages 550 public websites under one template. This template is currently being redeveloped with accessibility top of mind.

In order to meet WCAG 2.0 A and AA…

We have ensured:

Alt text on images we control (thumbnails, icons, buttons, banner images, etc)
Structure is easily distinguishable through visual cues – proper spacing between paragraphs, headings clearly defined, required fields on forms are clearly indicated
Styling options are limited – clients cannot change font size, colour
Content can be navigated through a keyboard, ensuring no keyboard traps
Users have the ability to bypass blocks to get to main content
Features behave as expected (Drop down menus, buttons, form submissions)
Error identification exists on forms
Contrast requirements are met on images/text, buttons/text, text on background
Users have the ability to resize text
There is an easy to use search function
Keyboard focus is visible
Consistent identification (labels, checkmarks, buttons, etc.) exissts throughout the sites

We have, and will continue to train our clients to create accessible web content, in particular:

Making the page easy to navigate with a keyboard through proper structuring (Use clear and descriptive headings to label sections)
Adding Alt tags for all non-text elements and not using images to convey text
Providing context for links that is descriptive and behaves in an expected manner (e.g., when opening in a new tab) and create links between pages
Ensuring proper label identification on forms
Providing transcripts on all audio and video clips

Our Plan

Prior to rolling out the new template, each site will go through an accessibility audit. The owner of the website will be provided a report outlining specific areas that are not compliant. Training will be provided, and we will work with clients to fix any accessibility errors.

In order to ensure sites are AODA compliant, we will not make the new site live until those errors are fixed.

As for training..

A group of 15 key web content creators will be taking a full day training session being provided by a third party
Web Services will repurpose the content and offer new and improved accessibility training sessions
These sessions will be held weekly for all digital content creators at Carleton
Resources, training material and documentation will be made available on our website

In Conclusion

Accessibility is top of mind. It makes for a better digital experience for everyone.
Our new template will be WCAG 2.0 AA compliant well in time for the deadline
Ongoing training will be provided to ensure content that is created is compliant