Website Accessibility

Our website is one of the main ways we communicate with people living in Wellington, Dufferin, and Guelph, and one of the main ways you can communicate with us. We’re working to ensure our website is accessible to everyone.

We follow accessibility standards, including the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

We consider the needs of:

• People with visual, hearing, or motor impairments
• People with reading difficulties
• People from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds
• People from different generations

While we have worked – and continue to work –- towards a very accessible website, there may be legacy documents, pages, formats, or third-party applications that aren’t compliant.

Software you might need

Some documents on this website are available in a PDF format. Adobe Acrobat is needed to open these files. Acrobat is available to download at no charge.

Adobe provides an excellent guide to using PDF documents.

Accessible features

There are various things you can do to change the look of this site to make it easier for you to read. You can make the text bigger, change the contrast, or change content views from desktop to mobile to print. This section gives you instructions.

You control text size

You can change the size of the font using these buttons located at the top of every page:

These buttons increase the text size from smallest (default) to medium to large.

If you’d like to go beyond the size settings we have available, changing font sizes in your web browser is easy. Instructions will vary from browser to browser. These instructions on the BBC website can walk you through each step. If you’re using Internet Explorer 8, follow the instructions for Internet Explorer 7.

You control contrast

Different contrast options can make text easier to read. For some, increasing screen contrast with alternative colour combinations softens the look of the site. You can change the settings on this website to suit your preferences. The contrast buttons are located at the top of every page:

These buttons change the contrast default to low to high.

View for mobile devices or print

Mobile and print views of this website have a simplified graphic design and navigation. All content remains accessible and functional. The alternative views buttons are located in the top right-hand corner of every page:

These buttons change the view from desktop to mobile to print.

Using a keyboard to navigate around this site

Most browsers allow you to navigate using the Tab key to jump from link to link. To navigate backwards, use Shift + Tab.

Access Keys are keyboard shortcuts to common pages on a website. Wdgpublichealth.ca does not use Access Keys because evidence suggests that they interfere with the keyboard controls of many browsers and screen readers.

Our accessibility guidelines

New media technologies are always changing, but we are committed to the following broad principles and guidelines:

Reading and language:

• Using an easy-to-read font type
• Ensuring suitable foreground and background colour contrast
• Using plain language for content written for the public  
• Providing meaningful text equivalents for pictures (alternative “alt” text)

Navigation – getting around the site:

• Providing simple, consistent site navigation.
• Providing a sitemap
• Providing navigational shortcuts for users of text-only browsers and page readers (“skip to content” and “skip to navigation” links)
• Using appropriate structural mark-up to maximize browser support
• Ensuring all content is available to users without content style sheets, image, and script support
• Designing for use with assistive technologies: ensuring that our media work well with technologies such as software that reads pages aloud

Providing help and learning from your feedback:

• Offering help and advice about how to use features of this website
• Integrating your feedback: we welcome user feedback and will work towards solutions to problems

Contact us

Let us know if there are things you find difficult or if you have constructive feedback. Send Feedback or Contact Us with your comments or suggestions.