Making the new vaughan.ca more accessible
To better serve residents, visitors and businesses, the City of Vaughan redesigned its largest communications tool – the website – to provide a user experience that is easy, enjoyable and useful. And best of all… vaughan.ca is now even more accessible.
According to the 2022 Citizen Survey, Vaughan’s website is the most popular way people look up information about municipal programs and services. So here are four ways we improved this resource for everyone, including those with visible and non-visible disabilities:
- Content
As part of the website redesign, any content published to vaughan.ca must comply with World Wide Web Consortium – Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, Level AA at minimum. However, we are working towards Level AAA. This includes ensuring appropriate text sizes, fonts and colours, and that all images, documents and charts are uploaded in an accessible format.
2. Captioning
All images on the website are required to include descriptive text alternatives, or alt text. This is the written copy that will appear in place of an image if it fails to load. It also enables users with vision loss, who use screen readers or other assistive technology, to understand the purpose of the image without seeing it.
3. Accessibility tools
Available on every page of vaughan.ca is a menu with a variety of on-demand accessibility features. Users can select from a variety of options, including a screen reader, contrast adjustment, bigger text, text spacing, pausing animations, a dyslexia-friendly feature, a dictionary and much more, if they require assistance reading anything on the website. These resources optimize functionality and remove any barriers to accessing municipal information.
4. Translations
The improved website now features a tool that automatically translates web content into 51 different languages widely spoken in York Region.
Have feedback on any of these accessibility features? Tell us:
- through the online Accessibility Feedback Form
- by email at accessibility@vaughan.ca
- by phone to Service Vaughan at 905-832-2281 or TTY at 1-866-543-0545
- by mail to: The City of Vaughan, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer – Accessibility, Vaughan City Hall, Level 100, 2141 Major Mackenzie Dr., Vaughan, ON, L6A 1T1
Want to learn more about how the City is championing accessibility? Visit vaughan.ca/accessibility.
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