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Why You Need an ADA Accessible Law Firm Website
Posted on By Author content@adaforweb.com Categories Articles

Why You Need an ADA Accessible Law Firm Website

Web accessibility for law firms is a commonly overlooked aspect for many law firms across the world. Accessible websites for law firms are an important tool as well as an asset to serve the common people. It is essential for law firms to ensure that their websites and the contents thereof are easily accessible by people who are disabled or impaired.

ADA-accessible websites are websites that follow the ADA guidelines and checklists. ADA compliance refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a law put into motion in 1990. This law is intended to ensure that disabled and impaired people have equal access to the same services and facilities available on websites as the general public.

The Necessity Of ADA Accessible Law Firm Website

The need for an ADA-accessible law firm website acts from both the firm’s and the clients’ perspectives. That is, an ADA accessible website is equally necessary for the law firm as it is for the clients of the firm. Following these accessibility guidelines ensures a two-way solution for both the firm and its clientele. There are many needs for an ADA-accessible law firm website.

Accessing A Larger Audience

With the rapid growth of digitalization and digital services by many firms around the world, websites are now an important asset for any firm. In the same way, law firms need an ADA-accessible website to ensure targeting and accessing a large audience.

By ensuring ADA accessibility, law firms can significantly increase their target audience and clients. This is because the law firm uses an ADA-compliant website to target not only the general public but also the disabled and impaired. In this way, disabled people can access the website easily. So, the firm can access a larger audience.

Ensuring A Disability Friendly Brand Presence

ADA-accessible websites ensure overall inclusiveness and equal service for everyone. When the website is not ADA accessible, it hinders the visually impaired, and disabled people from enjoying its content and features. As a result, it limits equality and inclusivity in the law firm.

Similarly, when law firms implement the feature of ADA accessibility on their websites, they allow every user to enjoy the same service. Regardless of their disability or physical constraints, they can access the services and contents of the website. So, it creates a notion of inclusion and a disability-friendly presence for the law firm. It is an essential element for every law firm.

Enhancing Overall Usability

ADA accessibility can increase the overall usability of your law firm’s websites. It is common for many people to think ADA accessibility is specially designed for disabled people. However, that is not entirely accurate. ADA accessibility can enhance the overall user experience of the website. It is crucial for law firm websites to follow.
Simply put, ADA accessibility allows your audience and clients to understand, perceive, and interact with the website easily. It allows a better performance by the website to meet the demands of its audience. At the same time, ADA accessibility attains all the features that are necessary to improve and refine the website. Thus, you can enhance the overall usability.

Avoiding Penalties

Following the ADA accessibility guidelines is more than just a feature of making the website more accessible. It also ensures that you are complying with the civil law of the country. According to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, all websites operated by federal agencies must be ADA accessible.
Law firms can face lawsuits against their websites if they are not ADA accessible. So, to ensure ADA accessibility is more than just a tool. It is a court-mandated order that is obligatory for all companies, organizations, and firms, including law firms. Hence, it is necessary for law firm websites to be ADA accessible. In this way, they can avoid penalties against their website.

How Can You Ensure An ADA Accessible Law Firm Website?

You can ensure ADA accessibility for your law firm’s websites by following multiple steps. You need to ensure that your website design complies with the ADA accessibility checklist. It includes using appropriate titles, headings, and subheadings for the contents of your website, havingalt text, using fonts and texts to benefit the general users, and many more.

Many companies provide services to make your websites ADA accessible. With their help, you can ensure that your law firm’s websites comply with all the necessary criteria to be ADA accessible. You can also run web accessibility audits to see how accessible it is by the audience. Thus, you can ensure a user-friendly and ADA-accessible website for your law firm.

Conclusion

Web accessibility is vital when it comes to designing a firm’s websites. Law firm websites must make ADA compliance for their websites a priority. It is important for addressing clients’ needs. Simultaneously, ADA accessibility is an obligatory practice for law firm websites.

So, ADA-accessible websites are immensely necessary for law firms.

What Law Firms Need To Know About ADA Compliance Online
Posted on By Author content@adaforweb.com Categories Articles

What Law Firms Need To Know About ADA Compliance Online

ADA Compliance stands for the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design. It entails the accessibility of all digital information and technology to people with disabilities. No business or company is exempt from adhering to the ADA and should be familiar with its requirements as stated. More specifically, web accessibility for law firms is crucial!

Most expect law firms to be among the most knowledgeable groups of people who deal with legal requirements. As this industry deals directly with the law, lawyers are typically the last people who would want to get involved in legal issues.

However, is the matter so severe that you need to hire an ADA compliance company to review your website? So to answer all your questions and for law firms to become experts on this topic, this article will cover all you need to know about web accessibility for law firms.

What Does ADA Compliance For Websites Entail?

Numerous laws in the US give disabled people civil rights. These laws include the 1990-enacted Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the 2008-enacted Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act (ADAAA). These laws forbid discrimination against individuals with disabilities and call for institutions to provide them with reasonable accommodations.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – Title III states that no individual shall be subject to discrimination based on their disabilities. They have the right to experience the equal and complete enjoyment of services, goods, facilities, advantages, and privileges of any public accommodation by the person who owns, leases, or operates it.
The law covers both physical and online businesses, including service providers and retailers on the internet. In other words, your website content must be available to all users if your company has an online presence. Adjusting your website to make it more user-friendly and accessible for people with disabilities is a vital part of this.

Why Should Law Firms Ensure Their Website Is ADA Compliant?

Undoubtedly, ADA compliance for websites can be a headache with many rules and regulations. Some law firms disregard the law entirely when developing their websites. But if Kylie Jenner and Winn-Dixie can get sued for their websites not being accessible to everyone, you may face severe consequences as well. Some possible consequences you may face include –

1. Legal Fees
Attorney fees can be pretty high if a company defends itself in court. Also, keep in mind that if the company loses the case, it will likely be responsible for paying the plaintiff’s legal fees and other costs.
Target eventually settled a class-action civil lawsuit in 2008 and paid more than $6 million for damages. They also had to pay an extra $4 million for the plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees in addition to this charge.The cost of ADA non-compliance to the company, including personal legal fees, was probably over $15 million.

2. Civil Penalty
Your company might also be required to pay a fine to the government if your website is inaccessible to specific people. Other than court costs, you may also need to pay fines to the government.
A company that violates the ADA’s accessibility regulations may need to pay between $55,000 and $75,000 in fines. Continuous violations can incur even more considerable penalties of $150,000 or more.

3. Staff Training
Let’s say you forgot to make your website accessible. Your actual storefront may fully meet the ADA requirements. However, the court might insist that you and your staff undergo ADA training.
Consider how a 2012 update rendered the website inaccessible to screen readers, leading to a lawsuit against Seattle Public Schools. The school had to settle and spent about $750,000 on an accessibility coordinator, ADA staff training, lawyers’ fees, website upgrades, and website maintenance.

How Can Law Firms Make Their Website ADA Compliant?

It’s best if you kept some factors in mind to make your law firm’s website ADA compliant. They are –

1. Optimized media: For videos, images, and audio files on your website, you must include alt tags or text descriptions incorporated into the website’s source code. Screen reader websites can read and describe the content of your website, which people with visual impairments frequently use.

2. Simple, User-friendly Website: An essential practice for law firm websites is to have a simple, user-friendly design accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities. The elements of your website, such as the menus, links, and everything else in between, should be simple to understand and use.

3. HTML standard tags: This is an essential requirement for ADA compliance. For people with disabilities to easily read or hear the contents of your webpage, everything should be available in plain-text format.

4. Navigability with a Keyboard: Many disregard the ability to navigate a website using only the keyboard. But many people with disabilities won’t be able to use the website without this feature.

Conclusion

Nowadays, website accessibility for law firms is a pressing issue, but many often tend to disregard it as they are not knowledgeable enough about it. So here we shared everything you need to know about web accessibility for law firms.

Hope this article has informed you about the importance of hiring an ADA compliance company ASAP! Thanks for reading up till now.

Posted on By Author content@adaforweb.com Categories Articles

Web Accessibility Guidelines For People With Disabilities

If you happen to be an owner of a website then chances are you are losing customers who are disabled because your website might not be accessible for them. So you need to make sure that your website is as inclusive as possible. To help you make your website accessible to all, this article will talk about how you can ADA for websites.

Using appropriate text size, color, a simple interface, and alt tags can make the web accessible for people with disabilities. It is not just a law but also a great marketing strategy.

Your websites are visited by a lot of people with different disabilities daily. Without proper accessibility, you might lose potential customers and even fail to provide service equally to all. Let us have a look at some web accessibility guidelines for disabled people.

Guidelines To Make Website Accessible For Disabled People

The ADA for websites makes it easier to ensure equality and accessibility for all people. Your website should follow the ADA guidelines to make yours an ADA accessibility company. Here are some ways to make your website accessible to disabled people.

Color Contrast And Text Size

Old people or people with visual impairments might find it difficult to access your website if it has fancy color contrast and text size. If your background is dark, you should consider having your content written in a light color so that it’s easier to read for users.

In the case of text size, if your content is written in a small size like 8, 10, it’s very difficult for users with disabilities to read it. A minimum of 14 for text size is recommended by the experts to make the content accessible to all.

Alt tags

Alternative tags are some letters inside the code when you design a website. It helps people with visual problems or disabilities to hear what the image is by using a machine. So make sure to include alt tags on your website to provide a better service to your visitors with disabilities.

Subtitles

Now, videos are just pictures, but what good does it do if you can’t hear what it is saying? Using subtitles or captions in videos makes it easier for people with hearing imparities to know about the video.
It also helps people who have visual imparities to hear what the video is about. The screen reader reads it out for them, offering them a better understanding.

Simple Interface

A fancy or complex interface design makes it hard for people with disabilities to access the website. A simple and easy-to-use interface provides a better experience for all users who visit the website.

You can enlarge any clickable assets on your website to make it easier for people with physical disabilities to navigate. It is hard for them to navigate to smaller assets that need good accuracy using the mouse.

Optimization

Optimization is the process of making websites, mobile apps, and online games compatible
with screen readers for all users. Screen readers are software programs that assist people with disabilities in interacting with technology. For example, a screen reader will read all text on your website and even show Web pages as they were designed to appear to the user.

Screen readers can also work with mobile apps that have cameras, GPS functionality, and other features that may not be accessible to blind users.

Formatting

Formatting is the process of making websites compatible with alternative keyboards and alternative mice to accommodate people with disabilities. Alternative keyboards are used by individuals who have a hard time typing on a regular keyboard.

Different types of alternative keyboards include ones that work on touchscreens or those that use head-motion technology. Alternative mice provide the user a way to control the cursor on the computer screen or mobile device.

Tools

There are different tools available to check if your website offers access to people with disabilities. Different tools provide different services and are best for certain purposes. Make sure you choose the right one and check your website accessibility for people with disabilities. We also have an ADA website compliance checklist to help you figure out if your website is ada compliant.

Conclusion

Making your website accessible for handicapped people is a must, not only for the sake of the law but also for your responsibility. It makes sure every person, despite their disabilities, can access your website and meet their needs.

Now that you are done reading this article, you should know about ADA for websites. Thanks for stopping by!

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