AODA
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) sets out standards legislated by the Province of Ontario designed to ensure accessibility standards are in place within all organizations. These include:
- The Information Communications Standards, including Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
- Accessible formats and communications support: be ready to provide alternative, accessible formats and communications supports as they are requested of you. Examples could include large print, braille, audio, text transcripts, captioning, or rephrasing in clear language.
- Website accessibility: this means ensuring your website is designed and content displayed in a way that is functional for visitors who may use various kinds of web-enabled or assistive devices, or who may have a disability. Content must be perceivable – meaning presented in a way that all users can perceive. It must be operable, understandable and robust. You can test your website using a free accessibility checker such as WAVE, ARC Toolkit or axe.
- The Employment Standards
- The Transportation Standards
- The Design of Public Spaces Standards
- The Customer Service Standards
- This means breaking down barriers that prevent individuals with disabilities from accessing the services they need. This might include physical barriers, technological barriers, information or communication barriers, organizational barriers (like policies that are discriminatory), or attitudinal barriers (meaning an individual’s attitude or openness to inclusiveness).
Quick steps you can take include to ensure you are being inclusive are:
- Run an accessibility checker on your website
- Ensure you use alt-text every time you post an image on social media or online. Alt-text is used by screen readers to describe the image or graphic.
- Make sure you create PDFs that are properly accessible. This means adding accessibility tags to your PDF for those using screen readers or other assistive devices.
- Enable and use closed captioning in meetings and in videos
U of T’s AODA Office provides training, tools and resources to support your work. Further, U of T provides clear directives on website accessibility compliance requirements. Find information and next steps here.