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Posted on By Author ADA Support Categories Articles

How Does Web Accessibility Save Your Firm From Litigation?

In this era of technology, everyone should be able to access the internet, regardless of their disabilities. ADA for websites and web accessibility redemption vouches to make your website inclusive to everyone worldwide. Besides the obvious ethical obligations, an accessible website has various other benefits too!

For instance, web accessibility development for your website can actually save your law firm from litigation. How? Keep reading to find out!

What Are The Requirements For A Website To be Accessible?

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 is a comprehensive set of standards for making websites accessible for people with disabilities. It consists of 13 guidelines that can fall under four concepts:

  • Perceivability: The website should present information and parts of the user interface to users in a way they can understand.
  • The navigation and user interface components must be operational.
  • Understandability: The content and navigation of the user interface must be straightforward.
  • Robustness: The content has to be solid enough to be reliably interpreted by a wide range of user interfaces, including those using assistive technologies.

Legal Requirements Of Web Accessibility

Surprisingly, no new laws have passed in recent years regarding website accessibility. The increase in litigation is not the result of a shift in the legal landscape. However, the number of ADA lawsuits filed and won against major corporations in 2016 increased from a handful before 2017 to between one thousand and two thousand in 2018.

Corporations that were the targets of the investigation include big names like Fox News, Harvard, Nike, Burger King, and Domino’s Pizza, among others. The WCAG specifies two distinct kinds of case causes:

  • Federal legislation (Section 508 article): This law requires all government-run websites to meet WCAG 2.0 AA standards. This is not a concern for your company.
  • Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act: This is federal legislation that requires all government agencies to take measures to eliminate disability-based discrimination.Given that the ADA is not specifically about the internet or how things should look online, there is no legally defined WCAG level within the ADA.

Since the “Section 508 article” referenced WCAG 2.0 AA, lawyers have begun using it in cases   as the only criterion for determining whether or not a website is accessible to people with disabilities.

Possible Legal Consequences For Not Adhering To Web Accessibility

The risk of a lawsuit or demand letter increases if your website contains features restricting users with disabilities from utilizing them. Unfortunately, plaintiffs cannot seek monetary damages in federal cases brought under the ADA. Therefore, a plaintiff’s only options are to have their legal bills covered and make the inaccessible area accessible again.

So, what legal consequences can you face for not adhering to the web accessibility laws? Let’s take a look:

Lawsuits Regarding Web Accessibility Is On the Rise!

UsableNet has released its 2021 results report on virtual ADA cases in the US, and the trends it reveals are undoubtedly worth noting. First, in 2021, there were 15% more lawsuits than in the previous year.

About 10 cases were filed daily, for a total of a staggering 4,055 cases! The tally includes all federal and state cases that mention an ADA violation. Remember that the figures presented here account for lawsuits, not demand letters.

Notices Of Demand

UsableNet’s study does not include demand letters threatening legal action and asking for a quick settlement for defendant firms. However, it’s common knowledge that demand letters often exceed federal and state cases.

Although this strategy has been linked to “ambulance-chasing” by some, it is grounded in the law because all websites must be freely accessible to all users. In most cases, small and medium-sized enterprises receive demand letters with settlement amounts in the $5,000–$20,000 range. Of course, this cost does not include the cost of remediation.

Multiple Legal Actions

You can still be the target of another lawsuit or demand letter even if you have already been sued or received one. ADA lawsuits are common for many businesses. It’s not a rare sight for a company to face legal action from various parties concerning its website and mobile application.

Unfortunately, no matter how often you settle a lawsuit or demand letter, if your online properties remain inaccessible, you still risk receiving more. Moreover, settling exposes you more because you practically admit that your website is inaccessible. This is why we need to take steps to make all digital assets more accessible.

Conclusion

Web accessibility remediation opens opportunities for your firm’s growth and protects it from litigation fines. In this article, we clarify your confusion about web accessibility development for those confused about ADA for websites.

Consult an expert web accessibility company to protect your website against litigation and maintain your finances. Thanks for reading!

Can Your Websites Be Sued For ADA Compliance?
Posted on By Author ADA Support Categories Articles

Can Your Websites Be Sued For ADA Compliance?

ADA website accessibility compliance is more than just a tool for your website. It is a requirement that you need to adhere to in order to keep your website accessible to all users. This leads many people to wonder can your websites be sued for ADA compliance? It is a common question by business owners and managers who are just becoming aware of the issue.

The goal of ADA compliance is to ensure equal access to services and a user-friendly experience for disabled people. So, by making your website ADA compliant, you do not discriminate against differently abled people. However, there is more to ADA compliance than we know. It is an obligatory requirement for websites to follow according to the Supreme Court decision.

Can Websites Be Sued For ADA Compliance?

The short answer is, yes, your websites can be sued for ADA compliance. Making your website ADA accessible is now a part of complying with the law. If you do not develop your websites to be ADA accessible, then you are not obeying the law. In that case, your website or organization could face an ADA lawsuit.

The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1989. This act deals with several provisions and different types of accessibility issues to support disabled people. According to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act,all websites of federal agencies have to be ADA accessible. This includes a large majority of firms and organizations being ADA compliant.

Additionally, the 2019 Supreme Court decision states that ADA compliance is mandatory for a firm’s websites. So, if a company, firm, or organization does not have an ADA accessible website, they are defying the Supreme Court. This can result in penalties or even lawsuits. In summary, yes, your websites can be sued for ADA compliance.

A prominent example of this event is the case of Robles vs. Domino’s Pizza. The fast-food chain did not have an ADA-accessible website. So, a screen reader couldn’t place an order on the website. Hence, Domino’s Pizza was sued by a blind plaintiff. They were ordered by the court to pay $4,000 as well as all legal fees incurred by the plaintiff.

So, this case shows us that without ADA compliance, your websitecan become a threat to your company. Whereas, websites are an asset to the organization that can help bring in new customers and increase profitability. Without being ADA compliant, your organization will fail to fulfill this. Instead, you will be under the threat of an ADA lawsuit.

What Can You Do To Prevent ADA Lawsuit?

The first step to preventing ADA lawsuits from happening is to make sure that your website is ADA accessible. Ensuring web ADA accessibility will mitigate your risks of getting an ADA lawsuit. Additionally, it will also improve your website’s user experience and generate better profitability.

There are multiple steps that you can follow to make your website ADA compliant. Make sure to go through the ADA accessibility checklist to ensure that you are following all of them. You need to get the necessary awareness and education first. In that way, you can understand the requirements, advantages, and obligations of ADA compliance.

ADA compliance for your website can be done in multiple ways. Using alt text is a part of making your website ADA compliant. Alt text, or alternative text, conveys the message of an image to the screen reader. It is especially important for users who are using assistive devices to use the website.

Providing video transcripts can be a great addition. Similar to alt texts, it helps screen readers go through the contents of an audio or a video. Not only that, but all users can navigate through it and understand it better with video transcripts. Correct use of fonts, headlines, sub-points, color contrasts, ARIA landmarks, etc. is an important part of ADA accessibility.

So, make sure to follow the ADA accessibility guidelines and checklists to make your website ADA compliant. Similarly, you can also get the expertise of different firms that provide auditing, testing, and ensure ADA accessibility on your websites.

Conclusion

ADA accessibility is a necessity for your websites. You can ensure a better service and user experience on your websites by following the ADA compliance guidelines. Thus, you will be able to provide the best services to all customers.

Contact us to learn more about ADA website accessibility.

ADA Compliance Website For Lawyers: A Complete Guide
Posted on By Author ADA Support Categories Articles

ADA Compliance Website For Lawyers: A Complete Guide

ADA compliance is an obligatory feature for websites. When it comes to legal advocates like lawyers, ADA compliance becomes much more important. It refers to the use of an ADA compliance website checklist to ensure website accessibility. It focuses on ensuring equal service and usage for everyone. It prevents the possibility of discrimination.

Web accessibility for law firms is crucial. With ADA web design, you can ensure web accessibility remediation. On the other hand, without accessible websites for law firms, lawyers may face several penalties. Hence, ADA for websites is an important tool for lawyers and website owners.

Why Do Lawyers Need ADA Compliance Websites?

If you are new to the concept of web accessibility for law firms and lawyers, ADA web accessibility can be confusing for you. Naturally, you might wonder why lawyers need ADA compliance websites. In simple words, having an ADA-compliant website gives you numerous advantages. But without ADA compliance, lawyers may face many negative consequences.

Lawyers need ADA compliance websites for multiple reasons. For starters, when lawyers use ADA-accessible websites, they can reach a larger audience. This can be crucial for their legal requirements, serving a larger demographic, and spreading awareness to the general masses. This helps them to create a better and more inclusive brand image.

At the same time, the public can have better access when lawyers use ADA websites. A large majority of these general people suffer from one or many forms of disability. So, these disabled people with physical constraints can get the best legal assistance with ADA-accessible websites. Whereas, without ADA-accessible features, this could not be possible.

Focusing on digital accessibility is vital for public service providers like lawyers. Instead of focusing on personal preference or aesthetic design, the priority should be ADA accessibility.

Because, at the end of the day, lawyers cannot provide the best service and usability to all of their users unless their websites are ADA-compliant and prevent discriminating against a large share of the general population.

Risks For Lawyers For Not Having ADA Accessibility

As we know by now, having an ADA-accessible website can help you achieve numerous benefits. Similarly, without ADA compliance, lawyers may face several negative consequences too. These consequences can be detrimental to lawyers and their law firms.

Accessible website development is an essential requirement for lawyers. One of the negative consequences of ADA non-compliance companies is that their legal fees might be higher. Failing to defend the plaintiff can result in legal lawsuits. In such cases, ADA compliance companies or law firms will get the upper hand.

This is because ADA non-compliance companies will have to pay a larger fine in the lawsuit. Additionally, following the ADA for websites is civil law. You can face ADA lawsuits and penalties if you do not follow them. A disabled person can file a lawsuit against a lawyer or a law firm for discrimination. Penalties for such cases can reach an astounding amount.

Not only that, ADA web accessibility development ensures equal service and benefits. Without it, you are cutting off a large portion of users with disabilities from using your website. So, as a lawyer, you are setting a negative image when you do not follow ADA accessible websites. It also creates a negative brand image for your law firm.

Ways To Get ADA Compliant Website For Law Firms

Getting the best ADA-accessible website for lawyers and law firms is vital. To ensure that, you can contact experts. Many companies provide web accessibility audits to provide you with a better understanding.

With these companies, you can get the best website features like WordPress ADA compliance. Make sure that you are prioritizing ADA accessibility guidelines and checklists during the onset of the website design.

Finally, make sure to check your website and perform audits to understand its features. With the right awareness and guidelines, lawyers can easily get ADA-compliant websites for their law firms.

Conclusion

ADA-accessible websites are an asset to lawyers. That is why lawyers and law firms must have ADA-compliant websites. In this way, they can guarantee the best service and inclusion for all their users. To learn more about ADA accessibility for websites, make sure to contact us.

Posted on By Author ADA Support Categories Articles

10 Ways To Improve Web Accessibility

Websites are now an integral part of every business. Whether it is a big firm or a new one, digital presence plays a big role in drawing in more customers. Web accessibility directly contributes to a business’s profitability. Keep reading to learn 10 ways to improve web accessibility to ensure better performance and profitability in your organization.

Web accessibility is now more than just a tool to accessorize your websites. With the progression of digital platforms and growing consumer demands, web accessibility has become mandatory. In this article, we will help you navigate through the ways to improve your web accessibility.

10 Important Ways To Improve Web Accessibility

Web accessibility enables the features on your website to assist users of all ranges and demographics. It is a crucial necessity to help people with disabilities and physical restraints to have a user-friendly experience with the website. 10 of the best ways to improve your web accessibility are given below

Using Proper Alt Text For Images

Alt texts provide an easy explanation of the message of an image. It is a vital feature for screen readers. Using alt texts can significantly improve the web accessibility of your website.

Especially with multiple images and infographics, alt texts are an essential tool. It ensures all users, including disabled users, easily understand the message of an image. So, ensure proper alt text for photos to improve web accessibility.

Making Dynamic Content Accessible

Dynamic contents are the contents of a page that can update or revise without refreshing. A website with dynamic content goes through continuous shifts and updates. Web accessibility improves when these contents are easily accessible.

Adding multiple assertive tools to the website allows the dynamic content to be more accessible. So, users of the website will not struggle to find updated or revised information. Thus, your web accessibility will improve.

Accessible Content Management System

An accessible content management system can drastically improve the user experience and overall web accessibility of your websites. Content management systems or CMS are tools that help developers and users to create, manage, edit or collaborate on the content of a website.

Ensure that the CMS of your website checks out the web accessibility criteria. That is, the page layouts, widgets, plugins, themes, and other related aspects must be compatible with web accessibility standards. Hence, your user experience and accessibility will positively improve.

Structured Headers And Sub Points

Correct use of headers and subpoints in a website can significantly improve the website. This helps not only the website’s outlook but also its usability.

Make sure that the important content on your website has the appropriate headers. It should also follow necessary points and sub-points in an organized way. Otherwise, the website becomes too clustered with information to follow through. Hence, structured headers and sub-points are important to improve your web accessibility.

ADA Compliance

ADA compliance is a very important tool to improve your website’s performance. An ADA-compliant website is user-friendly for disabled people and users with other physical restraints.

By making your website ADA compliant, you can ensure disabled people have full access to the services of your website. So, while designing and developing your website, make sure to follow all the ADA compliance checklists. This will boost your website’s accessibility.

Keyboard Friendly

Keeping your website keyboard-friendly is an important feature. Users with motor disabilities rely on the use of a keyboard. So, keyboard accessibility helps these users enjoy the website’s facilities without hassle.

So, make sure that content covering long pages is broken down with “skip” or “jump” options. The functions of tab or arrow keys should also be available on the website. That is, keyboard actions and shortcuts should be present on your website. Thus, it will become more accessible for everyone.

Provide Video Transcript

Video transcripts are an important tool to help different users with disabilities. Additionally, if your website has a collection of various videos and multimedia, a video transcript becomes a necessity.

With the availability of video transcripts, navigating through the contents becomes easier. At the same time, users can go over the content quickly rather than sit through the video. Transcripts for both video and audio can help deaf or blind users too. So, provide video transcripts on your website to improve its accessibility.

Use ARIA Landmarks

Accessible Rich Internet Applications or ARIA landmarks are an important tool for web accessibility. In simple words, these are powerful technical specifications that allow for making semantically defined sections of a page.

With ARIA landmarks, the webpage becomes easier to access by users of assistive technologies. This means that to support the disabled and users with restraints ARIA landmarks are vital. They make the information or content of a website more accessible for all users. Therefore, use ARIA landmarks on your website for better web accessibility.

Provide Sufficient Color Contrast

An underrated tool for web accessibility is the right color contrast. Many people design their websites to their individual preferences. However, the users’ experience and comfort should be a priority while developing the website.

The foreground and background of the website must have adequate color contrast. In addition, the fonts must have a distinct contrast against their background. Otherwise, reading the content becomes tiresome. The color contrast must be soothing and easy on the eyes. This will improve your website’s accessibility.

Avoid Using Tiny Or Difficult Fonts

Similar to color contrast, the correct use of fonts is an important element. Using difficult fonts makes the content inaccessible to the users. Similarly, tiny fonts are also difficult to read or navigate through by the users of the website.

So, while choosing fonts, make sure that they follow the website accessibility checklist. That is, they must be easy to understand and read by different users. This will be vital for improving your website’s accessibility.

 

Conclusion

Web accessibility is an important tool to improve its performance and productivity. By following these criteria, you can attract a large and diverse pool of customers to grow your business. Contact us if you have any queries or to learn more about website accessibility.

Is Your Website Compatible? Let’s Have ADA Compliance Checklist
Posted on By Author ADA Support Categories FAQ, Learn About Web Accessibility

Is Your Website Compatible? Let’s Have ADA Compliance Checklist

With the increasing competition in businesses for the public, people need to start thinking about website accessibility. As it is equally important to security and protection. 

What is Web Accessibility 

A practice of designing and coding the website in order to provide complete compatibility in accessing it by people with disabilities. In addition, it is a way to improve search engine optimization only an ADA Compliant Web Designer will help you to make your website Compliant. Is your website compatible? By going through the checklist below, you can get the answer.

Assessing Current Web Pages and Content

  • The website must include a feature like a navigation link at the top of the page. These links have a bypass mechanism such as a “skip navigation” link. This feature directs screen readers to bypass the row of navigation links and start at the web page content. It is beneficial for people who use screen readers to avoid to listen to all the links each time they jump to a new page. 
  • All the links should be understandable when taken out of the context. For example, images without alternative text and links without worded as “click here”. 
  • All the graphics, maps, images, and other non-text content must provide text alternatives through the alt attribute, a hidden/visible long description.
  • All the documents posted on the website should available in HTML or another accessible text-based format. It is also applicable to other formats like Portable Document Format (PDF). 
  • The online forms on the website should be structured so assistive technology can identify, describe and operate the controls and inputs. By doing this, people with disabilities can review and submit the forms. 
  • If the website has online forms, the drop-down list should describe the information instead of displaying a response option. For instance, “Your Age” instead of “18-25”.
  • If the website has data charts and tables, they should be structured so that all data cells are associated with column and row identifiers. 
  • All the video files on the website must have audio descriptions (if necessary). This is for the convenience of blind people or for having a visual impairment disability. 
  • All the video files on the website must have synchronized captions. People with hearing problems or deaf can access these files conveniently. 
  • All the audio files on the website should have synchronized captions to provide access to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
  • All web pages should be designed so that they can be viewed using visitors’ web browser and operating system settings for color and font. 

About Website Accessibility Policy and Procedures

  • One must have a written policy on website accessibility.
  • The website accessibility policy must be posted on the website at a location where it can be easily found. 
  • The procedure should be developed to ensure that content is not added to the website until it has been made accessible. 
  • It should be confirmed that the website manager has checked the code and structure of all new web pages before they are posted.
  • While adding the PDFs to the website, these should be accessible. Also, the text-based versions of the documents should be accessible at the same time as PDF versions. 
  • Make sure that the in-house and contractor staff has received the information about the website accessibility policy and procedure to confirm the website accessibility. 
  • It should be confirmed that in-house and contractor staff has received appropriate training on how to ensure the accessibility of the website. 
  • The website should have a specific written plan if it contains inaccessible content. Also, it should include timeframes in place to make all of the existing web content accessible.  
  • A complete plan to improve website accessibility should be posted along with invited suggestions for improvement. 
  • The homepage should include easily locatable information that includes contact details like telephone number and email address. This is useful for reporting website accessibility problems and requesting accessibility services with information. 
  • A website should have procedures in place to assure a quick response to the visitors with disabilities who have difficulty in accessing information or services available on the website. 
  • Feedback from people who use a variety of assistive technologies is helpful in ensuring website accessibility. So make sure to ask disability groups representing people to provide feedback on the accessibility of your website. 
  • Testing the website using a product available on the internet is helpful, These tools are of free cost and check the accessibility of a website. They may not identify all accessibility issues and flag issues that are not accessibility problems. However, these are, nonetheless, a helpful way to improve website accessibility. 

Checklist of Action Items for Improving the Accessibility of a Website

In addition, while considering the above suggestions, the following checklist initially prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for Federal Agencies provides further guidelines on ways to make websites more accessible for persons with disabilities. 

This practical advice, as well as another checklist, are available at:

www.hhs.gov/web/section-508/making-files-accessible/checklist/html/index.html

Satisfying all of these items does not necessarily mean that a website complies with ADA, but it will improve the website’s accessibility and decrease the risk of litigation. Again, an Expert or Web Accessibility Consulting & Services provider should be engaged to conduct a comprehensive review of your website.

Nothing brings you closer to reality than actually facing it. This is the premise of my latest attempt to spread awareness about Web Accessibility.

For better understand, here is a link in which a practical example is shown to make the websites’ user experience better by following the guidelines. Also, it tells the issues affecting various users on the internet with solutions. 

You can make your website ADA compliant in an easy way by consulting the professionals, who can do this job effortlessly. Also, you can get a quick website audit from To Be ADA Compliant that offers complete web accessibility consulting  & services in California, USA.

 

Resource: https://dev.to/chinchang/an-interactive-and-practical-introduction-to-web-accessibility-22o1

Increasing Federal Website Accessibility Lawsuits Facts
Posted on By Author ADA Support Categories Research

Increasing Federal Website Accessibility Lawsuits Facts

There is a rapid increase in the number of lawsuits and threatening demand letters sent to organizations for having websites that are inaccessible to people with certain disabilities. Rather, there must be a decline in the ratio instead of a hike. This article highlights the reason for the increasing number of lawsuits from those past years as well as a web accessibility lawsuit report for better clarification.

The number of Federal Website Accessibility Lawsuits Data (2017-2018) 

According to ADA Title III, there was a minimum of 2258 digital accessibility lawsuits recorded in 2018. With a drastic increase from 814 lawsuits in 2017. A bar graph shows the increase in the number of lawsuits dramatically from 2017 to 2018. This shows that the data has staggeringly become tripled in those two years. 

Title III Website Accessibility Lawsuits Graph

Reason Behind Such a Rapid Explosion of Website Accessibility Lawsuits

The main reason is the unclarity of the guidelines. Title III of ADA has no explicit mention of websites as it was written during the Internet’s inception.  Moreover, there were conflicting verdicts on a range of issues related to Title III and website accessibility. 

For instance, some courts have ruled that all websites are covered by Title III of the ADA while others have ruled that only websites for organizations with a physical location are covered. 

Due to this conflicting nature of federal rulings, an environment of rising litigation has taken and continues to grow.

It is also noted that in 2010, the Department of Justice under the Obama Administration announced the plan to revise the rules and create website accessibility regulations. However, due to constantly changing web technology, the process was delayed for many years. 

In 2018, the House of Representatives passed the ADA Education and Reform Act – but it was not specified to digital accessibility. Instead, it was about the steps that the plaintiff must go through before they can sue any organization under Title III. According to publication, the bill has not been brought up for a vote and is still stuck in the Senate. 

By seeing the situation, it is likely believed that it will take a long time. In addition, it is advisable to make your business protected to stay away from getting sued. Web accessibility lawsuit report says the following data. 

New York And Florida Based Plaintiffs

It is noted that New York and Florida are the two states that bring maximum lawsuits. Although this information is for the plaintiff’s and lawyers’ residence, not the companies being targeted. 

Lawsuits Filed in New York and Florida

Headquarters of The Companies of New York and Florida 

Taking a look at the headquarters locations listed in New York and Florida filing, it is clear that the whole nation is affected globally. 

Top Ten states Filed For Lawsuits

The Industry Pattern: 

The majority of the cases being highlighted by the General pattern over 2017 and 2018 towards the industries like: 

  • Retail
  • Food Service
  • Travel/Hospitality
  • Banking/Financial
  • Entertainment and Leisure
  • Self-Service

Industries Targeted For Web Accessibility Lawsuits

Defending Lawyers Vs Plaintiff Lawyers 

The report lists the top 10 on lawyers and plaintiff lawyers on a regular basis that will likely seem similar settlements and agreements being agreed over time.

Plaintiff Lawyers Vs Lawyers Handling Lawsuits under ADA Compliant cases

Summary: 

The reports show the rampant nature of lawsuits over two years within these states has affected globally. Till the rules get revised, it is strongly recommended to protect your business by making your website ADA compliant. Moreover, you can take assistance from professionals who can make your website ADA compliant as well as provide other services that would be according to the guidelines of ADA Compliant. 

Top Reasons For Your Website To Be ADA Compliant
Posted on By Author ADA Support Categories Articles

Top Reasons For Your Website To Be ADA Compliant

There are many design fashions to be aware of when building your brand’s website. A common question asked by most people is about its appearance that how it looks, or how could it convert visitors into customers. But no one asks, is your website ADA compliant? If not, what are the reason to have it? 

First thing first, ADA is the Americans with Disability Act which was developed in 1990 to ensure that all people must be given equal opportunities including the disabled ones. The disabilities may be visual impairment, hearing disorder, or any physical capacities. 

The rules are basically made for all the businesses that serve the public including building and website both. Thus, commercial buildings have almost all the facilities for handicapped people, what about your brand website? Is it ADA compliant? For this, the Official Standards of Website Accessibility may help you in checking your website accessibilities. In addition, here are a few benefits for having an ADA compliant website:

Expanding Your Target Audience 

The figure says, there are 50 million people with disabilities in the U.S that implies there are 19% of this country has a disability. Thus, if your website is not ADA compliant then you are somewhere losing some potential users. The consequences are clear, they will opt for your competitor’s website for easy navigation because your website is not designed for them to deliver your services. 

Improve Your SEO Efforts 

The key element of Web content Accessibility Guidelines is the accessibility to screen readers, and these readers crawl your website that meets the WCAG, it will likely appeal to users, search engines, and screen readers. That eventually improves your SEO results. For better results, meta-tagging, alternative image text, video transcripts work best. 

Hike Your Reputation

Being ADA compliant, your website is targeting more customers by which you are not only gaining more traffic on your website, side by side, you are gaining their trust as well as they also know how valuable they are to your business. This is one of a way to increase visitors as a way of recommendation. After visiting a couple of websites, a happy user surely will share their experience with their connections.

Overall Better Website Usability 

A website with better navigation, good operable, designed by following the WCAG will offer easy to comprehend that will allow everyone to find what they are looking for. Thus, it is good for the disabled and non-disabled ones. 

Win Over Penalties 

Having an ADA compliant website, save you from penalties that several businesses like Foot Locker, Brooks Brothers, Kylie Jenner that have been sued for the lack of ADA compliant websites.

For better understanding, below are the points given for a more inclusive site and adopting the WCAG: 

Analyze Your Current Site

ADA compliant website must meet the standards within these four categories: 

  • Perceivable
  • Operable
  • Understandable
  • Robust

Make sure your website meets all the above requirements. Use the ADA guidelines as a starting point to create a blueprint for your own site.

Choose the Right Graphics 

Carefully selection of graphics is an important part of accessible websites. The graphics must not be flashy more than three times per second. Besides, graphics should also have a description or caption with a read-aloud feature for a better understanding of visually impaired.

Alt-Text And Readable Font 

Ensure to provide alt text and readable fonts to all the images in your code. Alt-text allows site readers to describe your image audibly. 

Logical Website Features

Making everything easy to access is the key to a website. For example, the color combination and the color of the text must be easy to read. Also, putting a sign of “X” clearly on the upper corner of the pop-up to show how to close the window. A website must deliver clear information about what the user wants to gain. 

Include Standard HTML Tags

The basic requirement is the code should be readable by an assistive reader. Also, the code must use standard HTML tags. The complex image documents can’t be understood by software that reads text aloud for visually impaired website users. 

Friendly Keyboard And Pause

Not all users are able to interact with a touchscreen or a grip mouse. For instance, the reader must be able to pause content or slow down automatic scrolling/slideshow movements. Plus, eliminating videos that autoplay and have a time limit add more accessibility ease. Also, make sure that all video interactions and pausing should be completed using keyboard functions. 

Remain Up to Date With Compliant Changes

Updating knowledge being in business is good for both point of views – business and consumers. Don’t forget ADA needs are ongoing. So, gain knowledge as much you can and give equal importance to every customer. 

Overall, we have seen there are a lot of benefits of having an ADA compliant website that is good for the sake of easy accessibility as well as better business. In addition, having an ADA compliant website gives you more than what you think, a better accessible website with better results in point of SEO as well as building customer’s trust over you and your business.

For assistance, To Be ADA Compliant is one place that provides the best website audit for the website and design according to the guidelines to save your business hit by penalties. Make your business ADA compliant now and increase the sales along with a hike in visitors on the website with To Be ADA Compliant assistance.

All You Should Know About ADA Compliance
Posted on By Author ADA Support Categories Articles

All You Should Know About ADA Compliance

Many of us have heard about ADA Act but only a few have knowledge about it. Is it a threat to business for not following  ADA compliant guidelines? In this article, know all the basics of ADA Compliant website and go through the checklist provided to ensure you care about your all customers. 

Basically, this act was made for the business person to treat all the users including the people who are not efficient to access due to some disabilities. 

The American With Disability (ADA) Act, which was enacted in 1990, is a set of rules ensuring that everyone, including those with disabilities, has reasonable access to all areas of public life. 

 

It’s not just applicable for the public areas, it’s also about the website owners to provide information that is effectively accessible to all.

What is ADA Compliance?

 

What Is ADA Compliance

“The Department of Justice (DOJ) revised regulations for title II and III for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design in Sept 2010. These standards state that all electronic and information technology must be accessible to people with disabilities”. 

The Revised Titles Stated as:  

An overview of both of the revised titles is stated below.

Title II (State and Local Government)

Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in State and Local Government Services  

Title III (Public Accommodations)

Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations and in Commercial Facilities 

It is also noted that online ADA compliance is not mandatory on anything but government-managed websites. Instead, these rules act as guidelines to ensure that everyone should be able to access, read/view your website.

The ADA Compliance Issues: 

ADA created suggestions for compliance but these suggestions do not make them law. The suggestions are the only guidelines for the website/business owners to follow. For example, disabled parking facilities mandates in the building codes. The same goes for the websites’ though. In addition, it is not explained completely. Thus, due to the lack of guidelines, it’s hard to judge whether a site is ADA compliance or not. 

Is Your Website ADA Compliant?

Now, its time to look at your website to check is it ADA compliant or not. For this, here are a few checklist points you may go through:

Captions and Descriptions For All Videos – Make sure that all the video scenes have audio description for people who are blind or have low vision. Make sure the videos contain text captions so that people who are deaf or hard of hearing able to access it easily.

Alt Text For All Images – Providing text for each image is beneficial for the people who can read by using screen readers or Braille displays. By using Alt texts, people get the information that exactly what the image is for.

Ensure Your Website Meets Color contrast Standards – This is useful for those with low vision or color blindness. They can change the website’s color and font to read it without any problem. 

Keyboard Navigation – Assistive technologies like imitate keyboard functionality is made for those who are navigating with their keyboard.

What To Do If You Get Sued 

It is likely that most of the notices received are for the purpose of settlement. If you ever received a letter for a lawsuit or settlement, the first thing not to do is panic. Remain calm because it is not mandatory that you can follow all the guidelines in one website. In a situation like this, you may rather follow the steps below: 

  • Investigate – First of all, investigate yourself about the law firm in question. You can easily get your answers on the internet. Check out the details and seek out the credibility of the firm and who the experts are. Moreover, you must research who all in your industry has received a letter from the same firm. Eventually, you may find a lot of businesses if you know your industry. There could be a chance of a class-suit that would be beneficial for the businesses involved in your industry. To take this action, you must know your industry well.
  • Understand the Claims Made Against You – Be sure that you have a firm that understands all the legal items that are highlighted in the letter. It would be great if you take help from outside. A legal counsel or digital agency is the better option to choose for this.
  • Be Confident To Explain Anything To Plaintiff – Explaining to the plaintiff about the review of the grievance and talked with a lawyer in confidence. It would be good if you explain the guidelines of ADA Compliance. It will be better to let your attorney contact the plaintiff when making statements.
  • Audit Your Website – A complete website accessibility audit is a pragmatic step to prevent getting an ADA lawsuit. It will show you accessibility issues on your website. For example, an audit may uncover that your PDF files can’t be read by assistive technology devices. It could also uncover issues around the alt-tags of images on your website. There are a lot of factors that go into ADA compliance. The audit will see where your site stands now and give you the steps you need to take to get it on track. 

In conclusion, it is all a brief introduction about ADA compliance act, the checklist to inspect and additions to your website, last but not the least, steps to take if in case you are sued for the lawsuit. 

The main concern is to take precautions and be on the safe side by making an audit of your website. You can consult, To Be ADA Compliant which provides web accessibility and consulting services. Schedule your appointment and get the best consultation for your website. 

 

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