Accessibility Compliance: What Your Next Audit Should Cover

If you manage a website in Ontario, accessibility is on your radar whether you like it or not. Under the AODA, organizations with 50 or more employees must have public websites that meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA. Even where it isn't required, WCAG is the benchmark for procurement, partners and customers.

Why it matters beyond compliance

According to Statistics Canada, 27% of Canadians aged 15 and older, about 8 million people, have at least one disability. An inaccessible site leaks conversions, and accessibility improvements tend to improve usability and SEO for everyone.

What a solid audit should cover

• Colour contrast for text, buttons and form fields.
• Alternative text for meaningful images, and empty alt text for decorative ones.
• Keyboard navigation and visible focus through menus, modals and forms.
• Form labels, error messages and instructions.
• Heading structure and page landmarks.
• Zoom and reflow at 200% and on mobile.
• Captions for video, and accessible PDFs.

Automated plus human

Automated scanners catch many common issues quickly and consistently, but not all of them. The best results pair automated scanning across the whole site with a manual review of your key journeys, like contact, checkout and booking.

What a useful deliverable looks like

• Issues prioritized by impact, not just listed.
• Each issue mapped to the relevant WCAG success criterion.
• Clear, plain-language fix guidance your team or vendor can act on.
• A baseline you can re-measure against.

A monthly re-scan turns a one-off audit into an ongoing record, which is useful evidence when it's time for your AODA compliance report.