A website is accessible if everyone can understand and use it, even people with disabilities. Organisations and businesses need to ensure their web content is made keeping in mind the unique needs of people from all backgrounds and abilities to make them feel welcomed and included.
One way of making a website or app more accessible is to use AODA-compliant colors, which means using an accessible color palette that makes it easy for everyone to read and comprehend the information.
AODA-Compliant Colors: An Overview
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) ensures that everyone in Ontario, including those with any mental or physical disabilities, gets access to all services and products.
Every organization and business in Ontario must adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). A critical part of making any website accessible is to make sure the website has an AODA-compliant color scheme throughout. By doing so, the website becomes fully accessible to people with disabilities and also widens its audience and user base.
Why Does AODA-Compliant Color Matter for Web Accessibility?
The color palette of your website is an essential part of the design and user experience, as the right color contrast and colors will enable people who have lower vision or blindness to access the content with ease. People with vision disabilities are affected by the color contrast throughout the website.
If the website is not designed with AODA-compliant colors, disabled people may have difficulty distinguishing between various buttons, labels, links, etc. So, all the online content must be designed keeping AODA-compliant colors in mind.
AODA-Compliant Colors: A Deep Dive
When you are designing your website, you should be mindful of selecting color combinations and contrasts that adhere to the AODA’s standard for web accessibility. To ensure you are using AODA-compliant colors, consider:
1. Choosing the correct color combinations, such as:
- Black and White: This is the combination with the highest color contrast combination, making it a standard combination for making a website the most accessible. Also, accessibility is more important than creativity and fancy looks on any website, so opting for a classic black-and-white combination never fails.
- Yellow and Blue: As yellow and blue are on opposite ends of the color spectrum, they make for a very accessible color combination. However, choose the correct shades of blue and yellow, as a few shades might not be contrasting enough.
- Red and White: If you choose a dark red with a white background, it will provide a good color contrast for accessibility and be visually appealing, too. Again, choose the right shade of red and white for the best contrast.
- White and Green: This too is a great looking and accessible colour combination. Be careful which shade of green and white you select for maximum contrast effect.
Apart from these highly contrasting color combinations, there are a few combinations that are not contrasting enough, such combinations need to be used after testing for their accessibility and contrast effect. Some of the combinations that do not contrast well are:
- Blue and black
- Blue and purple
- Green and blue
- Purple and black
- Red and brown
- Red and green
- Yellow and green
- Yellow and orange
- Yellow and red
2. Making the text easy to read and comprehend.
3. Adding icons, checkboxes, and other functional graphics features with proper color contrast ratios.
Public sector organizations or organizations having 50 or more employees are required to adhere to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) by making their websites accessible.
All new websites and older websites with important updates to their media and content’s look, navigation, and overall feel are required to be accessible so that people with disabilities can also comprehend and use the information on the website.
How to Check Color Contrast?
The WCAG provides guidelines for using color ratios that are accessible. For AODA-compliant color schemes, ensure:
- If the text is average-scale, the contrast ratio between the foreground and background colors should be 4:5:1 or more.
- If the text is large-scale, the ratio should be 3:1 or more.
Contact us to make your content ADA color-compliant with ease!
With Continual Engine’s innovative solutions, you can ensure all your digital content meets AODA color compliance standards. Using AI, deep learning, and computer vision, we help you achieve accessible content with precise color contrast and readability standards. Our experts have over 20 years of experience in accessibility and technology, and we offer customized, ADA-compliant solutions catering to your specific needs, delivering high-quality results faster and more affordably.
Creating an accessible website is essential for any organization or business to thrive in this digital era.
Having AODA-compliant colors with the correct contrast and brightness makes the website more accessible, ensuring that all people, irrespective of their ability or background, can read, comprehend, and use the information.
By doing so, the organization also gets a larger audience and helps the maximum number of people of all abilities feel included.
