ADA Web Compliance
Is your site able to support users that are visually impaired, have motor skill disabilities, ADHD, epilepsy or other challenges that make using your website difficult?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), states that every business website has to be accessible to people with disabilities.
The Law prohibits discrimination based on disability by places of “public accommodation”, meaning websites or brick-and-mortar facilities.
People with disabilities, specifically those who are blind or visually impaired, have been filing lawsuits against businesses over website accessibility issues, and many of them were winning.
WHAT IS WEB ACCESSIBILITY?
Web accessibility is a set of design guidelines, rules, code standards, and behaviors. They are used to enable people with disabilities, which comprise 20% of the world’s population, to use websites effectively.
To achieve this, the W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) has created the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1), which guide developers on how to make websites accessible.
The WCAG focuses mainly on three areas of accessibility: blind people using screen-readers (JAWS, NVDA), people with motor impairments who use only keyboards, and a variety of other disabilities such as color blindness, epilepsy, and minor visual impairments that are mainly focused on the UI and design of the website (color contrasts, animations, fonts, etc.).
HOW DOES IT APPLY TO WEBSITES?
A website should be prepared and agile enough to address all forms of disabilities. For example, does your website contain videos? If it does then you need to provide audio captions as well as transcripts for those with auditory or cognitive issues.
In order to comply with the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, a clean and minimal layout must be considered for those with cognitive and learning disabilities. Larger buttons and customizable text is also needed to assist those with visual impairments.
It makes it easier for a wide audience to use your website when a user can change the spacing, size, color and font. It makes them more comfortable for regardless of what type of device they use to access it.
IS ADA WEBSITE COMPLIANCE MANDATORY FOR MY WEBSITE?
“The ADA does not explicitly address online compliance, even after undergoing several amendments in the far more web-oriented era of 2008. With no specific coverage under the law, it usually falls to the courts to determine how ADA standards apply to websites—or whether they do at all,” says Site Improve, a company dedicated to ensuring all public websites are ADA compliant.
Since it’s up to the courts, many people have stretched their limits by attempting to bring lawsuits against companies for not having a website that meets the needs of certain disabilities. In today’s world, this can be a scary thing to consider.
Apache Interactive has partnered with accessiBe to provide a complete solution for ADA compliance and to help prevent potential ADA lawsuits.
We can integrate the accesiBe widget into your website in order for people with disabilities to identify and use the website properly and for you to be compliant with all ADA requirements.
3 Minute Walkthrough Video Of Accessibe's Website Compliance Solutions
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