What is Web Accessibility?
Web accessibility means that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them. More specifically, people can:
- Perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web
- Contribute to the Web
Web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the Web, including:
- Auditory
- Cognitive
- Neurological
- Physical
- Speech
- Visual
Web accessibility also benefits people without disabilities, such as older people with changing abilities due to aging and people with temporary disabilities or situational limitations.
Source: World Wide Web Consortium - Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C WAI)
Site Standards
This site is compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These guidelines cover a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible to a broader range of people with disabilities, enabling them to perceive, understand, navigate and interact effectively with the website.
It should be noted that ongoing efforts are made to improve and maintain the accessibility of this site in accordance with the Government of Québec’s website accessibility standard.
The Government of Québec’s website accessibility standard can be consulted and downloaded here.
Structure and Presentation
The Communications, Public Relations and Legal Affairs Directorate endeavours to use best practices when it comes to writing, presenting and structuring content made available to you on this site.
Language
Our site has two interfaces: an English one and a French one. You can therefore browse the site in either language by selecting the FR icon for French or the EN icon for English located in the top right-hand corner of each page.
Colours
We are subject to the Programme d’identification visuelle (PIV) visual identity program established by the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS). The colours used on this site comply with the WCAG 2.0 standards:
- 1.4.1 Use of Colour: Colour is not used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response or distinguishing a visual element
- 1.4.8 Visual Presentation: For the visual presentation of blocks of text, a mechanism is available to achieve the following:
- Foreground and background colours can be selected by the user.
Resizing Text
You can increase or decrease the size of the text on all the pages of our website by using the icon in the top right-hand corner.
Non-Compliant Content
Not all content components are compliant with the accessibility standards. There are several reasons for this, such as having to post time sensitive information in exceptional circumstances, especially if the health or safety of individuals or property is at stake, or if it is in the public interest. Also, in some cases, the following components may not be compliant:
- Tables
- Accordions
- Decorative images
- Home page buttons
- Audiovisual documents