Website accessibility for local businesses: what WCAG 2.2 means and why it matters

Why accessibility matters for a local business

In 2022, 27% of Canadians aged 15 and older, about 8.0 million people, had one or more disabilities that limited their daily activities. (Statistics Canada, Canadian Survey on Disability 2022)

Some of them use a screen reader that reads the page aloud. Some navigate with a keyboard instead of a mouse, zoom the page to 200% or more, or need captions on videos. Many more simply have tired eyes, a cracked phone screen or bright sun on the display.

When your website works for them, they can find your services, call you and book. When it doesn't, they hire someone whose site does.

What WCAG is

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the international standard for accessible websites, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). They're organized around four principles: a site should be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

Each guideline has testable success criteria at three levels: A, AA and AAA. Level AA is the level most laws and policies refer to.

WCAG 2.2, published in October 2023, is the current version. It builds on 2.1, drops one outdated criterion (Parsing) and adds new ones, such as:

• Focus not obscured. The item a keyboard user is on mustn't be hidden, for example behind a sticky header.
• Target size. Buttons and links need to be big enough, or far enough apart, to tap reliably.
• Consistent help. Contact details and help links appear in the same place on every page.
• Redundant entry. Forms shouldn't make people type the same information twice.
• Accessible authentication. Signing in shouldn't depend on solving a puzzle or memorizing something, unless there's an easier way, such as letting password managers fill it in.

What the law says in Ontario

Ontario's accessibility standards under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) set out who must do what:

• Organizations with 50 or more employees must make their public websites accessible. The standard they must meet is WCAG 2.0 Level AA, with exceptions for live captions and audio descriptions of pre-recorded video.
• Businesses and non-profits with 20 or more employees must file an accessibility compliance report every three years. The next deadline is 31 December 2026.

The Government of Ontario's page on accessibility rules for businesses and non-profits has the full requirements. If you're not sure which apply to you, check there or ask an advisor.

Even if the website rules don't apply to your business, meeting them is still worth it. An accessible site reaches more customers, and much of what makes a site accessible also makes it faster and clearer for everyone.

A practical checklist

You don't need to memorize the guidelines to cover the basics.

1. Contrast. Body text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background. Pale grey on white usually fails.
2. Text for images. Every meaningful image needs alternative text that says what it shows. Decorative images should be hidden from screen readers.
3. Real headings. Use proper headings (H1, H2, H3) in order, not just bold text, so screen-reader users can skim.
4. Keyboard access. Every menu, button and form must work with the Tab and Enter keys alone.
5. Visible focus. Keyboard users need to see where they are. Don't remove the focus outline.
6. Clear links. "Read about furnace repair" beats "click here".
7. Labelled forms. Each field needs a visible label, and errors should say what to fix.
8. Zoom and reflow. The page should still work at 200% zoom and on a narrow phone, without sideways scrolling.
9. Captions. Videos with speech need captions.
10. Motion. Nothing should flash, and animations that run on their own need a way to pause them.

How to test your own site

Start with free tools, then test by hand:

• Automated checkers such as the axe DevTools and WAVE browser extensions, or Lighthouse in Chrome, flag many common problems in minutes.
• The keyboard test. Put the mouse away and try to use your site with Tab, Shift+Tab and Enter.
• The zoom test. Zoom the browser to 200% and check nothing is cut off or overlapping.
• A screen reader. NVDA is free for Windows, and VoiceOver is built into every Mac and iPhone. Even five minutes listening to your home page is revealing.

Automated tools catch only part of the problems, so the hands-on tests matter.

What we did on our own site

We hold our own website to WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Our accessibility statement explains how we test it, what isn't perfect yet and how to tell us about a barrier. A statement like that is worth having on your own site too.

This article is general information for business owners, not legal advice. Survey figures are US consumer research where noted; we are not aware of equivalent published Canadian surveys and do not present them as Canadian data.