Everyone who needs to use a government digital service or website should be able to use it. This includes people with visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairments, those with learning difficulties, and older people. It also includes people with different levels of digital confidence and access to a digital environment. For example, Yukon.ca is designed specifically so people in Yukon communities can use and load the pages from locations with lower bandwidth.
The current standard
The government's accessibility standard is Web Content Accessibility Guidlines (WCAG) 2.2. This guidance builds on the previous versions (WCAG 2.0 and WCAG 2.1).
How to meet the standard (Digital Service Standard #9)
Before any new digital service or website launches, you must demonstrate that it meets this standard. Follow these steps.
Complete manual and automatic accessibility testing
Test the digital service or website using a combination of manual and automatic techniques.
- Test the digital service or website with people with different abilities.
- Use screen readers (for example JAWS or VoiceOver) and speech recognition software (for example Siri or Windows Speech Recognition) to experience the digital service or complete a series of tasks on the website.
- See if you are able to change the colours, contrast levels and fonts to make
- Try zooming in up to 300% to make sure everything is still visble and usable on the screen.
- Navigate a task on a website or through a digital service using only your keyboard to make sure everything appears in the correct order.
- Use a free tool like AChecker to check your pages and identify issues and solutions.
Submit testing report to the UX PM
Summarize what you've learned though your testing. This can be a short summary to let eServices know:
- what testing techiques you used;
- what version of your digital service or website you tested (Dev, UAT or Prod);
- what issues, if any you uncovered; and
- how you have addressed any issues you'e come across.
How to incorporate accessibility into each stage of the service delivery process
- See how to plan for accessibility in discovery.
- See how to show you are considering accessibility as you develop your prototype (alpha).
- See how to demonstrate accessibility requirements are being met in beta.