ADA Compliance Checklist For Your Website
Make Sure Your Website Is ADA Compliant
Has it been a while since you’ve updated your brand’s website? Are you unsure whether your website is ADA-compliant or not? If you answered yes to either of these questions, it is important to you and your business that you dive in and make sure it is up to date with the latest ADA-compliant integrations. If not, it could truly cost you. Keep reading to learn more about ADA compliance for websites and how to get started today.
What Is ADA Compliancy For My Website?
ADA stands for The Americans with Disabilities Act. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in everyday activities. The ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, just as other civil rights laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. The ADA guarantees that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else to enjoy employment opportunities, purchase goods and services, and participate in state and local government programs.
This also extends to web usage.
Inaccessible web content means that people with disabilities are denied equal access to information. An inaccessible website can exclude people just as much as steps at an entrance to a physical location. Ensuring web accessibility for people with disabilities is a priority for the Department of Justice. In recent years, a multitude of services have moved online, and people rely on websites like never before for all aspects of daily living. For example, accessing voting information, finding up-to-date health and safety resources, and looking up mass transit schedules and fare information increasingly depend on having access to websites.
What Happens If My Website Is Not ADA Compliant?
The Americans with Disabilities Act applies to state and local governments (Title II) and businesses that are open to the public (Title III). A website with inaccessible features can limit the ability of people with disabilities to access a public accommodation’s goods, services, and privileges available through that website—for example, a veterans’ service organization event registration form.
Examples of businesses open to the public includes:
- Retail stores and other sales or retail establishments;
- Banks;
- Hotels, inns, and motels;
- Hospitals and medical offices;
- Food and drink establishments; and
- Auditoriums, theaters, and sports arenas.
If your website is not ADA-compliant, you risk facing a lawsuit. Website accessibility lawsuits have become a hot topic, and many unscrupulous attorneys have made it their mission to target websites without ADA-compliant features. You can get served with a lawsuit without notice, without a chance to fix your errors, and without even knowing that having an ADA-compliant website is required these days.
Website accessibility lawsuits can be very costly—running up to $50,000, depending on how many features you are missing, and attorney’s fees on top of it all. Small businesses can find it very difficult to survive this type of lawsuit, which makes it essential to make sure you’re totally compliant.
ADA Compliance Checklist
If you’re not sure whether your website is ADA-compliant, chances are, it isn’t. Some major stand-out features are essential to an ADA-compliant website, which we have compiled into a handy checklist. Text alternatives, easy navigation, accessible design, and optimized content are extremely important when it comes to having an ADA-compliant website. Click here for a full PDF guide to everything the ADA requires.
Text Alternatives
Individuals with visual impairments depend on devices to help them read the content on the Internet. Your website needs to work with screen reader software so that visually impaired individuals can access your content and understand the context of all your images and videos. Everything, including all charts and graphs, needs to be accessible and have descriptions.
Easy ways to achieve this include:
- Adding ALT tags to all images and videos
- Adding text transcripts or captions to all videos
- Adding meta descriptions to each page on the website
Easy Navigation
It is important to make sure that your website has a clear, easy-to-use navigation system. Not only does this cut down on the amount of time a user takes to get where they want to go, but it also allows individuals with motor impairments to easily access every area of your website.
Examples of having an easy navigation system include:
- Individuals who are not able to use a mouse or trackpad should be able to use your navigation using a keyboard or other device.
- The ability to use Tab or keyboard arrows to navigate through your website and links
- Keeping the navigation clear and consistent throughout every page of the website
- Using proper header tags and content hierarchy
- Clear calls to action that are not color-based
Accessible Design
Did you know that your website’s design, forms, color palette, videos, and more may not be ADA-compliant? Individuals with colorblindness and other visual impairments, as well as those with cognitive impairments, depend on other ways to consume content, and having an accessible design plays a huge part.. Here are the three major things to look out for to ensure an accessible design.
Accessible Forms
Clear, easy-to-use forms are essential on every business’s website for many reasons. Whether you want to capture leads fast, sign up for an email newsletter, or book an appointment, having a great automation system for your forms is extremely important. It is also important when it comes to ADA compliance.
Tips for having accessible forms on your website include:
- Labels that screen readers can convey to their users (such as text that reads “credit card number” where that number should be entered);
- Clear instructions; and
- Error indicators (such as alerts telling the user a form field is missing or incorrect).
It is also important to make sure that you do not rely on color alone to call out required fields. Those with colorblindness may not be able to see it and, therefore, not be able to understand why their form is not going through the submission process.
Accessible Videos
Individuals who are visually or hearing impaired will need to use other tools to be able to watch, listen to, and otherwise understand the videos that are on your website. Some of the most important tips for having accessible videos include:
- Ensure all videos have subtitles. Subtitles on videos have become the norm these days. Not only are they convenient for people who choose to wear headphones or don’t want their phone’s volume on in public, they are important for individuals who are hearing impaired and satisfy parts of ADA web compliance. An added bonus is that subtitles and captions are great for SEO purposes.
- Include transcripts. It is very important to include text versions of speech in any video on your website. Descriptive text is most helpful for helping those who are visually impaired, so that their software can help them understand the context of whatever is in the video.
- Easy to start/stop/pause. Make sure that your videos are easy to use and, preferably, have keyboard accessibility to start, stop, and pause.
Fonts
It is important that your website is not only easy to read but that assistive software can easily pick up what is written on your website. Many times, decorative fonts can cause difficulty in these areas.
It is also important to limit the number of fonts you use. This will help individuals clearly decipher what is a headline, what is body text, and what is captioning. Keeping these themes consistent throughout your website will make it easier to use for all those who visit it, but most importantly, individuals who have visual impairments or assistive software.
Tips for font usage include:
- Opt for sans serif fonts
- Use at least size 12 font
- Bold words for emphasis, rather than italicize
Colors
Colors are a very important aspect of ADA compliance. The law requires the following practices:
- Eliminate poor color contrast. People with limited vision or color blindness cannot read text if there is not enough contrast between the text and background (for example, light gray text on a light-colored background).
- Do not use color alone to give information. People who are color-blind may not have access to information when that information is conveyed using only color cues because they cannot distinguish certain colors from others. Also, screen readers do not tell the user the color of text on a screen, so a person who is blind would not be able to know that color is meant to convey certain information (for example, using red text alone to show which fields are required on a form).
Optimized Content
Your website content should be optimized for the four following disabilities to achieve proper ADA compliance:
- Cognitive impairments
- Hearing impairments
- Motor skill impairments
- Visual impairments
Some of the ways to best achieve this include:
- Use proper SEO content structure throughout your website, as it also works perfectly with content reading software for those with disabilities. This includes things such as headers, H2 tags, and ALT tags.
- Make your content easier to read by using bulleted lists, summaries, clickable keywords, and bolded words.
- Do your best to avoid slang, lead with important information first, and use descriptive link text. Descriptive link text helps the user understand the page they’re being led to, rather than clicking something that simply says “Click Here.”
Get ADA Compliant with Navazon Digital
Making sure your website is ADA-compliant can be a difficult, long, and complicated process for those who choose to take it on themselves. However, it is essential if you want to avoid a heft lawsuit. Luckily, Navazon can get your website ADA-compliant for you.
Navazon helps businesses increase profits through data-driven marketing that expands opportunities and reduces risk. As marketers and entrepreneurs, we understand the value of developing a memorable brand through creativity and consistency. This is accomplished through targeted graphics, videos, and websites that reflect our proven, time-tested methodologies and detailed analytics. It is an approach that’s proven effective for companies of all sizes, from start-ups and medium-sized businesses to large firms with an international presence.
We are content creators who listen to our clients so that we can formulate ideas and strategies based on their unique goals and philosophies. Thinking through those goals with our analytics-based approach, we study not only their tendencies but also those of their competition and the market as a whole.
At Navazon, we do not believe in “one size fits all.” Every part of the marketing plan is customized to address your unique niche and positioning strategy. This is how we excel, and it’s why we succeed.
Schedule a free consultation with us now! Visit us at navazondigital.com for more information.
