Why Should You Make Website Accessibility A Priority?

Why Should You Make Website Accessibility A Priority?

Given that the number of people using the internet is now larger than ever, there is an increasing need for accessible website development. It’s no longer enough for your website or app to be compatible with various browsers; it also should be accessible to users with sensory impairments.

For this reason, web accessibility remediation is quickly rising on the list of priorities for everyone creating content for the modern web. In this article, we’ll discuss the significance of adhering to web accessibility development and why seeking help from a professional web accessibility company should be your priority.

What Does Making Website Accessibility Entail?

To be considered accessible, a website must ensure that its content is readily available to people with varying levels of disability. The World Wide Web Consortium has developed certain web accessibility standards.

The rules cover a lot of ground when it comes to accessibility, but they can’t possibly meet everyone’s specific requirements. The goal is to present content in the following ways:

  • Easy to see.
  • Quick to learn and use.
  • Very easy to grasp.
  • People may interpret it reliably.

Why Website Accessibility Should Be The Top Priority for Your Business

Increasing your website’s accessibility is crucial in encouraging more people to utilize the internet. However, it also directly affects your company’s online success.

Websites that are easy to use for people with disabilities can help businesses expand their online presence and shield them from potential legal liability. Therefore, you should prioritize website accessibility for at least the following five reasons:

  1. Expands Your Potential Customer Base

Millions of potential clients who cannot visit your site because of their disabilities are automatically lost if your website is not currently ADA compliant. A staggering 19% of Americans, or roughly 50 million people, live with a disability.

Many people could be interested in what you offer, but they can’t buy your services or even get in touch with you since your website isn’t designed to be used by people with disabilities. That means they might decide to go on to your rivals instead.

Even though your current consumers won’t notice a difference from the addition of accessibility enhancements, you may experience increased traffic and conversions from new customers. By making your site more user-friendly, you’ll send a message to those potential customers that you appreciate their business and want to keep it.

  1. Improve Your SEO Game

Making a website accessible benefits users and increases the site’s visibility in search engine results (SEO).When a website complies with the website accessibility guidelines, it is more likely to be favored by users.

As a result, your company website’s SEO efforts will receive a significant boost on search engines and screen readers. No doubt, developing your business website with careful consideration of video transcripts, alternative picture text, and meta labeling is a must!

  1. Gaining Favorable PR

Disability rights activists, individuals with disabilities, and those close to them all support web accessibility. Taking a stance on web accessibility is an excellent way to establish credibility for your company.

If customers with disabilities have a good experience with your company, they’ll likely tell their friends and followers about it.So making a public announcement about your website’s accessibility is a great strategy to start gaining favorable press.

  1. Enhance The Site’s Usability

Yes, individuals with disabilities are the primary emphasis of accessible website design. They must be able to access, navigate, and consume media at the same levels as their peers. In addition, you can also enjoy further benefits stemming from developing an accessible website in this fashion. For starters, increasing accessibility usually entails fixing issues and reducing page sizes.

But that’s not the end of it! Accessible websites are user-friendly for everyone. All users benefit from simplified navigation, ALT text for images on pages with sluggish internet connections, and glossaries. As you reconstruct your site to improve its accessibility, you’ll find that its overall usability improves.

  1. Decrease The Risk Of Discrimination Lawsuits

Individuals with impairments are guaranteed the same rights as everyone else in the workplace thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990 (ADA). More and more, the rules in that law are starting to apply to a company’s website and social media accounts, not only the physical location.

Over 2,200 web accessibility-related lawsuits were filed in 2018, nearly three times as many as in 2017. As expected, that figure keeps climbing. It has an equal impact on mom-and-pop shops and multinationals like Domino’s. Failing to make your website accessible could potentially destroy your finances someday!

The best part is that you can avoid these lawsuits altogether if you design your website according to the ADA guidelines. Creating a successful website boils down to some basic guidelines.

Conclusion

ADA for websites is now more important than ever! But, if you still don’t understand why accessible website development is such a pressing issue, we will share all the reasons that make web accessibility remediation thetop priority for your company’s website!

We hope you find a reliable web accessibility company to develop your website. Thanks for reading.

List of Website Accessibility (ADA) Violations

List of Website Accessibility (ADA) Violations

It’s no secret that a website is one of the most effective promotional tools at your disposal to promote your company. However, there’s no point in making one if those with disabilities cannot use it. With one in every four adults in the US living with some form of disability, ADA for websites is more crucial than ever.

If you are also looking into web accessibility remediation, look no further! However, before contacting a web accessibility company, discover all the possible violations preventing you from accessible website development.

What Does ADA Compliance Exactly Mean?

ADA compliance means meeting the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design standards and guidelines. This law applies to digital resources, such as the Internet and associated websites, and traditional ones, such as libraries and museums.

As per the ADA, businesses must ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to their products and services at places of public accommodation. Simply put, the law implies making adjustments so that those with visual, bodily, or other disabilities can use the same facilities as those without disabilities.

Because the web is a public place, these rules also apply there. The purpose of the law is to give everyone the same rights and opportunities. Additionally, it ensures that people with disabilities have access to equal opportunities in transportation, employment, telecommunications, and other services from the federal and state government.

Therefore, it is crucial to design a website accessible to people with a wide range of impairments. The consequences of not being ADA compliant are grave, ranging from the loss of business to potential legal trouble.

Top Common ADA Compliance Violations for Websites

In the same way that physically accessible buildings are essential, websites that adhere to ADA standards are equally important. Unfortunately, many website administrators don’t consider ADA while developing web pages or defining material. This slight mistake can annoy millions of people with disabilities trying to use your website.

So you might want to avoid these ADA compliance violations to the best of your ability. The most common violations for websites include –

  1. Texts with Poor Color Contrast

A common ADA compliance violation is websites’ poor color contrast. According to WCAG 2.1, the ideal color contrast for standard text should be 4.5:1 and 3:1 for larger text. Certain visitors won’t be able to read the text on your site if you don’t maintain a good color contrast ratio.

If you choose colors that people with color blindness or other impairments cannot perceive, the page may appear blank to them. Likewise, people with limited vision, neurological, or cognitive disorders may have difficulty reading the content.Unfortunately, the vast majority of websites fall short of the required minimum.

  1. Missing Alt Text!

According to WCAG 2.1, you must include a text alternative for non-text content (like photos or charts) that conveys information. When a text alternative accompanies non-text content, assistive technologies (AT) such as screen readers can display it for the user.

For instance, a person with vision impairment can request the AT to read the text equivalent of an image in a synthetic speech. Simply put, images should have alternative text, commonly known as alt text, which provides a brief, descriptive explanation of the picture.

3.Form Elements Without Labels

People who use assistive technologies may have trouble completing an online form if the required fields, such as shipping and payment information, are not clearly indicated. In addition, the user will be confused about why their submission failed if a red asterisk denoting a necessary field doesn’t have a message explaining what it means.

There are many different kinds of fields on forms, including text, radio buttons, drop-down menus, and checkboxes. Fields must have labels so that users know what they are clicking on and what information is needed. Users who need to fill out a form for various purposes can find this an annoyance.

  1. Inconsistent Headings

The incorrect sequence of headings is a common cause of non-compliance with ADA standards. Unfortunately, it’s also one of most website developers’ simplest mistakes. Many people mistakenly believe that by modifying header tags, they may change the size of the headers they want to highlight or deemphasize.

Problems arise when content creators for a website treat heading levels (H1, H2, H3, etc.) more as decorative features than sequence indicators. They frequently pay more attention to the headers’ aesthetics than how they work.

As a result, content creators frequently replace the H1 with the H2 if the latter appears more visually compelling. However, this throws the article itself out of alignment, making it impossible for screen readers to comprehend the content properly.

Conclusion

Ignoring website accessibility requirements or ADA for websites almost guarantees a lawsuit. So if you plan to look up web accessibility remediation, we’ve got you covered! Here we share all about web accessibility development and common ADA violations your website may have.

Discuss them with your web accessibility company to develop an accessible website. Thanks for reading.

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!