Accessibility: Web Welcomes

The Town of Oakville’s website (Oakville) has been updated to offer an enhanced text-only version that is fully accessible for people with vision impairments, blindness, and reduced motor skills.

Most sites are either difficult or impossible to use for those who have impaired vision, but now they can easily access virtually all the information on the site.

At the upper left hand corner of every page is a “Text Only” button, which provides access to that version of the web site. There, the existing web pages are converted to plain text and the information is arranged appropriately for users of assistive technology, such as software that converts visual text to Braille or synthesized speech.

Users also have the option to increase the size of the font or change the background and text colours, which helps people with low vision to read the text. The ability to increase the font size is useful to people with reduced motor skills.

These individuals often use a stylus and touch screen technology to get around web sites and may find it frustratingly difficult to click on a small button or link with precision. By making the links larger, the site is easier to navigate for these users as well.

The enhancement of the site is one of the town’s Accessibility Advisory Committee’s initiatives being implemented this year.

Plans are also in the works to create accessible versions of other web sites associated with the town, like the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts and Oakville Transit sites, in the future.

Changing Gears recognized this need too. We feature search and click on options, rather than lots of drop down menus and an easier to read larger font size.

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