Bridging the Gap: An Exploration of Visual Design Criteria Found in the "Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005" (AODA)

Information and communication technology such as World Wide Web have gradually become implanted in every aspect of individuals life such as education and training, employment, government, health care, and more. Web provides valuable resources and information for web users including people with disabilities and help them tackle several tasks that would otherwise need much more effort to be done. Accordingly, web accessibility creates a guideline with the aim of making the content of each web page available for a wider range of people with disability, has reached a new level of importance. For this importance, the government of Ontario passed a law titled the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), 2005, in which all internet and digital services must comply with accessibility guideline by 2025.

Several researchers show a gap between professional design work and technically driven accessibility design guidelines. One of the reasons for this gap is an absence of concern for visual design during the process of implementing accessibility guidelines. The aim of this paper is to bridge the existing gap between accessibility and visual design to improve the overall usability and functionality of the system. In order to achieve this, I first identify and explain the visual design related criteria of AODA guidelines, their requirements and their impact on accessibility design. Then I demonstrate my experiment with utilizing visual design elements through the implementation of visual design principles on two selected websites to create an accessible web page that is not only usable but also has an aesthetically appealing interface.