Web accessibility
It's 2024 and digital products should be designed with accessibility in mind. I make it my priority to ensure WCAG compliance in my work, and advocate for barrier-free user experiences through strategic product conversations with my clients. Auditing and testing for accessibility early and often is an important part of my process, and the best practice I ask of my team. I have created detailed resources and taught hands-on tutorials on accessible design and remediation, and I attend webinars every month to keep up with the latest on digital accessibility topics and legal standards in my clients' geographies.
I got started as a web accessibility specialist while I was working within the AODA office at the University of Toronto. There, I was trained on web accessibility conformance in Ontario, and I was responsible for auditing and providing recommendations for a subset of the university's thousands of websites. At the moment, I'm enrolled in Deque University's web accessibility courses as I prepare to sit for the CPACC certification from the International Association of Accessibility Professionals.
WCAG: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) established the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines with the input and participation of disabled communities globally. WCAG has been adopted by governments and organizations as a minimum set of standards with which websites must comply to be considered accessible. WCAG 2.0 is now widely accepted as a benchmark by initiatives such as the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). In Ontario, January 2021 marked the deadline for the public sector, non-profits and private sector organizations to comply, by law. W3C continues to develop more in-depth and detailed specifications, with version 2.1 published in 2018, and 2.2 released in October 2023.
Naturally, making digital products truly accessible requires more than a "checklist" approach, but the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines present a great starting point. Altogether, the four primary sets of criteria — Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust — provide a broad approach to a more inclusive online experience. The WCAG standards make more information on the Internet available to folks with a range of disabilities, including people with low vision, no vision, deafness and some mobility and cognitive disabilities.