Now!
At CPABC - our goal is to make both of our public websites (Corporate website and PD website) accessible by December 31, 2022.
In 2014, the Government of British Columbia announced its Accessibility 2024 plan to make British Columbia the most progressive province in Canada for people with disabilities by 2024. Included in the plan is the objective to make internet access in B.C. the most accessible in Canada. Mandates will start with government sites and government affiliated sites, but eventually all websites in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors will be required to comply. Therefore, all companies will need to show that they are working on a plan and moving forward with making their website accessible.
CPABC will be following WCAG 2.1 AA and will be preparing for B.C.'s accessibility laws to take affect. Becoming more inclusive, and doing our part to help make B.C. the most accessible province in Canada will become law in the next few years. By starting now, we can meet the standards and legal requirements before they are mandated.
By learning and educating the CPABC team about these accessibility changes will help ensure that we all grow together to meet the upcoming initiatives.
- Comply to the WCAG 2.1 AA standards (web best practices)
- Avoid any regulatory penalties (when applicable to private, public, and non profit organizations)
- Be accessible to a wider audience, such as seniors, and people with disabilities
- Increase CPABC's online reputation
- Increase our own company awareness of what “web accessibility” really means
- Develop a greater sense of trust and credibility with our audiences
- Grow our audience
- Be more inclusive
Depending on their positions and job descriptions, staff may need to participate in training on web accessibility standards. All staff at CPABC who develop and publish content for the web will need to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines - WCAG 2.1 AA.
There are two versions of WCAG: WCAG 2.0 and WCAG 2.1.
In 2018, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) amended the WCAG 2.0 guidelines by adding 17 more criteria items and naming this version WCAG 2.1.
W3C encourages us to use the most recent version of WCAG when developing or updating content or accessibility policies.
WCAG 2.1
- 4 Governing Principles (POUR)
- 13 Guidelines
- Level A - 30 success criteria items
- Level AA - 20 success criteria items (plus all success criteria items from Level A)
- Level AAA - 28 success criteria items (plus all success criteria items from Level A and Level AA)
- 13 Guidelines
Note: CPABC does not need to adhere to Level AAA
Each guideline and criteria is assigned a level or ranking: (order of difficulty)
- A (minimal level of requirement) easiest to do, basic accessibility conformance
- AA (medium difficulty) international best-practice requirement
- AAA (most complex) only for specialized sites that have specific features
"Content" in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines refers to:
- web content (text and widgets);
- html
- images;
- PDFs; and
- videos.
Using a keyboard, screen reader, third-party testing tools such as Deque aXE, simulators, and real people (manual testing), we can determine if and when a web page, PDF, an image or a video is accessible. Learn more about accessibility tools.