We want everyone who visits the City of Hamilton’s http://pplb.hamilton.ca to feel welcome and find the experience rewarding. The City of Hamilton is committed to the goals set out in the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), 2005 and its regulations. The Integrated Accessibility Standard Regulation (IASR) calls for all new websites for organizations with more than 50 employees to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities, and user friendly for everyone.
At the City of Hamilton we are striving to design and test to comply with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Where possible we will align with WCAG 2.2 to ensure forward compatibility.
What are we doing?
To help us make the City of Hamilton’s Planning, Permitting, Licensing & By-law system a positive place for everyone and to comply with the AODA/IASR, we’ve been conducting automatic, manual, and end-user testing to help us update our website to ensure WCAG compliance.
- Planning, Permitting, Licensing & By-law system has been formally evaluated against WCAG 2.0 Level AA, and the evaluation confirms conformance with:
- All applicable Level A success criteria
- All applicable Level AA success criteria
- The accessibility approach aligns with:
- The Ontario Human Rights Code
- The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)
- The scope of this effort includes:
- Core navigation
- Page templates
- Standard user workflows
- Core application functionality (WebUI)
- Accessibility validation was not theoretical. It involved practical testing using:
- Common assistive technologies
- Modern browsers and operating systems
- Native accessibility features
- Where appropriate, Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) techniques are implemented to improve how structure, navigation, and interactive elements are communicated to assistive technologies.
Accessibility features
Our Planning, Permitting, Licensing & By-law system makes use of industry-standard techniques and best practices to provide the highest possible level of web site accessibility for our users, including:
- Content Structure and Language - Content is well‑structured using clear headings and semantic markup, with accurate page titles and a defined page language. Information remains meaningful when presented in different formats.
- Visual Accessibility - Information is not conveyed by colour alone, and text meets contrast requirements. Content supports text resizing up to 200% and zooming up to 400% without loss of functionality. Where possible, text is used instead of images of text.
- Keyboard Navigation - All functionality is available using a keyboard. Focus order is logical and always visible, repeated content can be skipped, and multiple navigation options such as search and filtering are provided.
- Forms and User Input - Form fields are clearly labelled, required fields are identified, and errors are explained in text and announced to assistive technologies. Users can review, correct, and confirm information before submission, with confirmation required for destructive actions.
- Predictable and Consistent Behaviour - Navigation and interface components behave consistently across pages, without unexpected changes when elements receive focus or input.
- Assistive Technology Support - The application is tested with common screen readers and browsers, uses standard HTML where possible, and applies ARIA to ensure compatibility with assistive technologies.
Accessibility barriers
There are no systemic or widespread accessibility barriers identified. However, due to conditions beyond our control, there are some instances, mentioned below, where we are unable to provide information in an accessible format. We will introduce accessible solutions as they become available.
- When using Voiceover on iOS, two add-ons present problems:
- Document uploader – focus management issues
- Map viewer – focus management issues and duplicate or erroneous announcements
Roadmap
We are aware of the following accessibility barriers. We have a plan in place to fix them and will continue to update our Accessibility Statement each quarter.
- The identified issues with Document Uploader and Map viewer has been recognized, documented and planned for remediation for a future release.
- We will continue to work towards WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance and where possible WCAG 2.2 Level AA.
How are we doing?
We’ve worked hard on the City of Hamilton Planning, Permitting, Licensing & By-law system and believe, outside of documents uploader and map viewer, that we’ve achieved our goal of WCAG 2.0 Level AA.
We are continuing to work on the accessibility of documents uploader and map viewer and will strive to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA and WCAG 2.2 where possible.
We monitor the Planning, Permitting, Licensing & By-law system regularly to maintain accessibility and usability, but if you find any problems, please let us know.
Contact us
We are committed to the ongoing process of making our city, services, and digital environments welcoming and more accessible.
Please let us know what you liked about using the City of Hamilton’s Planning, Permitting, Licensing & By-law system, or if you had trouble with any part of it.
Accessibility Feedback / Compliant Form
