Accessibility belongs in the acceptance criteria from the beginning.

The Canadian federal standard is changing — our wording reflects that.

As of August 2026, the former Government of Canada Standard on Web Accessibility has been rescinded. Federal organizations are transitioning toward the digital-accessibility requirements in the Accessible Canada Regulations and the current CAN/ASC-EN 301 549 standard for information and communication technology.

For Government of Canada work, Amidship uses the accessibility requirements actually applicable to the engagement. For web interfaces, WCAG 2.1 Level AA or better remains an engineering baseline where it is compatible with those requirements, but Amidship does not present WCAG 2.1 AA alone as the current Government of Canada legal standard.

Build the interface so core workflows remain operable.

Default implementation practices include:

• semantic document and interface structure;
• keyboard operability for core workflows;
• clear, visible focus states;
• accessible names, roles, states, labels, and instructions for interactive controls;
• sufficient contrast and no reliance on colour alone to communicate meaning;
• responsive layouts, reflow, and scalable text;
• meaningful headings and landmarks;
• error identification and recovery that does not rely only on visual cues;
• text alternatives, captions, transcripts, or descriptions when the content requires them.

Test manually as well as automatically.

Automated accessibility tooling is useful, but it is not treated as proof of conformance on its own. Depending on the risk and procurement requirement, testing can include automated checks, keyboard-only workflow testing, screen-reader review of critical paths, zoom/reflow testing, contrast verification, and manual review of forms, errors, dynamic content, focus management, and semantic structure.

Conversational and agentic interfaces need accessible state and recovery.

For AI-enabled experiences, Amidship designs system status, pending actions, errors, and completion states to be perceivable; avoids unnecessary time limits; keeps core functions available through accessible interface patterns; makes confirmation explicit before consequential actions where appropriate; and provides understandable recovery when AI or tools fail.

Where the service requires it, the design should support an alternate or human service channel rather than making an inaccessible automated interaction the only path.

Documents count too.

Accessibility requirements apply to public-facing reports, forms, PDFs, office documents, and generated artifacts when they are part of the engagement. Document accessibility is included in acceptance criteria rather than assumed to be a web-only concern.

Claims must match the evidence.

Amidship distinguishes among:

• design target — the standard the work is intended to meet;
• testing performed — the checks actually completed;
• conformance claim — a claim supported by sufficient project evidence;
• third-party audit or certification — claimed only when it actually occurred.

When a solicitation requires formal conformance assessment, usability testing with persons with disabilities, certification, or specialist expertise beyond the engagement team's demonstrated capability, Amidship will bring in qualified accessibility specialists rather than overstate internal credentials.