Standards and Tools We Work With

Compliance work rests on a mix of legal standards and practical testing. The audit runs two lanes now, accessibility and privacy, so this reference covers both: the standards we hold your site to, and the tools and checks we actually work with. Every link goes to the source, or to our own plain explanation of it.

The accessibility standards

• AODA

  Ontario's accessibility law. The web standard applies to public sector organizations and to businesses and non profits with 50 or more employees in Ontario. Under 50 you are not caught by it, though the Ontario Human Rights Code applies at any size.

• WCAG 2.0 AA

  The conformance level AODA names for websites: 38 success criteria across Levels A and AA. We build toward 2.1 and 2.2 as well.

The privacy standards

• PIPEDA

  The federal privacy law. It governs what you collect, what you tell people you collect, and whether the consent you are relying on is actually meaningful.

• Quebec Law 25

  Stricter than PIPEDA. Technology that profiles, locates or identifies a person has to be off by default. It matters as soon as you have customers in Quebec.

The tools we test with

• axe-core

  An automated engine for a fast first pass at the machine detectable issues.

• Lighthouse

  Automated scoring that catches the obvious. We treat its score as a floor, not a finish line.

• VoiceOver

  Real screen reader testing, to confirm your site actually works for the people who need it.

• Keyboard testing

  Manual checks that every task can be completed without a mouse.

The privacy checks we run

This is the same toolkit behind every audit we run, both lanes in one pass. The automated tools give us a fast first look, and the manual work, with a real screen reader, a keyboard, and a browser watching what your site sends where, is where we catch the things a machine never could. We're not lawyers, and none of this is legal advice about your own obligations. It's what the regulations say and what we find when we go looking.