AODA Website Compliance
What is AODA?
AODA stands for Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. This law helps to remove barriers for persons with disabilities (PWD). It mandates that organizations in Ontario must meet the standards set by the law to make themselves more accessibility friendly. Formed in 2005, AODA is one of the first laws that explored accessibility into legislation.
There are 5 standards under the law that help remove barriers for people with disabilities.
- Customer Service – to remove barriers for people to access services
- Information and Communication – to make information more accessible
- Transportation – to make travel accessible for people with disabilities
- Employment – that revolves around the best hiring and employment practices
- Design of Public Spaces – facilitates the use of accessible outdoor spaces
Who Must Comply with AODA?
Any organization or entity that provides services and products to the public, and has one or more employees in the province of Ontario needs to adhere to AODA.
The following types of organizations need to comply-
- All private organizations( business and non-profit)
- Government of Ontario and Legislative Assembly
- Public Sector organizations such as municipalities, educational institutions
Any business or non-profit organization with 20 or more employees, and public sector organizations must file a Compliance Report with the Ministry of Seniors and Accessibility.
The latest reporting deadline is December 31, 2023
What do you need to do to be compliant?
The first step begins with a gap analysis to evaluate your organization’s level of accessibility. Every organization that is subject to AODA is required to file a compliance report based on the 5 AODA standards.
To learn more about the reporting process and penalties for non-compliance visit the link below.
What can AEL do for you?
Your web content is subject to compliance reporting requirements under the Information and Communication standards, and the first step is to conduct a web or mobile accessibility audit of your digital assets. AODA requires an organization to file a report every three years, and that would require you to perform a re-audit on your application even if an audit was conducted in 2020.
To comply with the AODA’s web accessibility requirements, all web content must conform with WCAG 2.0 AA success criteria, with the exception of 1.2.4 (live captions) and criteria 1.2.5 (audio descriptions)
However, we recommend that all applications conform to the presiding global standards of WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA to address more recent accessibility legislation and best practices. WCAG 2.1 standards are backward compatible with WCAG 2.0 standards.
Our Accessibility engineers at can help you assess the web pages to be audited and conduct a manual accessibility audit on your website or mobile application.
What you will get with a web accessibility audit:
- Keyboard testing
- Manual code review
- Color Contrast testing
- Complete screen reader testing on Chrome with NVDA on Windows 10. Additional browser and screen reader combinations are available on Request.
- A well documented and detailed report on the issues encountered and how to fix them with code snippets
- Tested against WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards
- Delivered in Excel with screenshots of bugs or uploaded to your bug tracking software of choice (JIRA)
Our Digital Accessibility Services
Whether you are responding to a demand letter, or want to be inclusive but don’t know where to begin? We are here for you.
Our accomplished experts will help you meet your Web Accessibility Content Guidelines (WCAG) compliance requirements and become accessible. Pick from any of the services below that fit your needs.
Accessibility Audit
Accessibility Remediation
Accessibility Consulting
Related Services
ADA
Section 508
EN 301 549
How Accessible Is Your Website?
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