Julian of Norwich Anglican Church Website Accessibility Statement
Updated: August 2024.
General
Julian of Norwich Anglican Church strives to ensure that its services are accessible to people with disabilities. Julian of Norwich Anglican Church has invested a significant amount of resources to help ensure that its website is made easier to use and more accessible for people with disabilities, with the strong belief that every person has the right to live with dignity, equality, comfort and independence.
Requirement
The AODA requires that all web sites and web content must be compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 Level AA), except for:
1) success criteria 1.2.4 pertaining to live captioning
2) success criteria1.2.5 pertaining to pre-recorded audio descriptions
For a complete list of the WCGA-2 requirements implemented, please refer to the following link:
WCGA-2 Requirements
Accessibility on Julianofnorwichottawa.ca
Julianofnorwichottawa.ca makes available the free version of the UserWay Website Accessibility Widget that is powered by a dedicated accessibility server. The software allows Julianofnorwichottawa.ca to improve its compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1).
Julian of Norwich also uses the DIVI Accessibility plugin to enable keyboard-only navigation.
Enabling the Accessibility Menu
The Julianofnorwichottawa.ca accessibility menu can be enabled by clicking the accessibility menu icon that appears on the corner of the page.
The menu may also be accessed by single-tapping the TAB key and pressing ENTER.
Enabling the Skip to Content Link
On each of our web pages, the link is activated by double-tapping the TAB key.
When the link is active, tapping the ENTER key will move focus to the main content.
Overview of Accessible Features
The following lists some of the accessible features on this web site:
1) Navigate website using only the keyboard.
2) Navigate website using a screen reader.
3) Text-to-Speech is supported for the visually challenged, using NVDA.
4) To facilitate keyboard navigation, Skip to Content has been enabled.
5) Headers on each page are in logical order: h1 h2 h3 etc.
6) Elements are labeled with a sufficient contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1
7) Link text is underlined and links are accessible using the TAB and SHIFT TAB keys for keyboard navigation.
8) Menu links and clickable buttons, when accessed via the keyboard, are highlighted in a rectangular frame for easy identification.
9) Alternate text description for images – clearly visible descriptions for screen reader users
10 ) Hidden form field text that is only visible to screen readers
11) Animations may be frozen via the UserWay control panel.
Mobile
Users of mobile devices and people with physical limitations experience similar barriers when interacting with web content. For example, mobile phone users will have a hard time if a website’s navigation requires the use of a mouse because they typically only have an alphanumeric keypad. Similarly, desktop computer users with a motor disability will have a hard time using a website if they can’t use a mouse. Additionally, people with physical limitations sometimes use mobile devices to access websites.
For mobile, the requirements recommend that content, without the need for scrolling in two dimensions, be presented without loss of information or functionality. All images, iframes and forms deployed on the Julian of Norwich website are of a responsive design and do not require scrolling in two dimensions.
Testing
All tests were performed using Google Chrome (on a Windows 11 computer) and related extensions.
1) Wave Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE), tota11y for Chrome and DIVI Accessibility (a WordPress plug-in) to measure overall adherence to protocols.
2) NVDA (Windows) and Chrome Screen Reader to measure Screen Reader functionality.
3) Google Read Aloud to validate text for ‘text-to-speech’ capability – not particularly intuitive – a weak alternative to a screen reader – functional, but not recommended.
4) Live Caption, for those with hearing restrictions, to automatically generate real-time captions for YouTube / Vimeo videos.
5) Hands Free for Web Page Voice Control – does require some practice to use – struggles with drop-down menus – great for page navigation.
6) Skip to Content – upon page load, a button appears in the top left corner of each page to assist keyboard-only users to bypass top level menus and access a page’s content more expediently.
Since we have not tested the above with Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari or Firefox browsers, we respectfully request that visitors to our site, who experience physical limitations, switch to Chrome.
Disclaimer
Julian of Norwich Anglican Church continues its efforts to constantly improve the accessibility of its site and services in the belief that it is our collective moral obligation to allow seamless, accessible and unhindered use also for those of us with disabilities.
In an ongoing effort to continually improve and remediate accessibility issues, we also regularly scan Julianofnorwichottawa.ca with UserWay’s Accessibility Scanner to identify and fix every possible accessibility barrier on our site.
Despite our efforts to make all pages and content on Julianofnorwichottawa.ca fully accessible, some content may not have yet been fully adapted to the strictest accessibility standards. This may be a result of not having found or identified the most appropriate technological solution.
Here For You
If you are experiencing difficulty with any content on Julianofnorwichottawa.ca or require assistance with any part of our site, please contact us via email and we will be happy to assist.
Contact Us
If you wish to report an accessibility issue, have any questions or need assistance, please contact Julian of Norwich Anglican Church Customer Support as follows:
Email: julianwebcoord@gmail.com