Does your Portfolio Website Need to be ADA compliant

Websites have become crucial to our businesses, and our everyday interactions with clients in today’s work from home landscape. Now more than ever, it is vital that your website caters to all your clients. 

What is ADA?

One of the major pieces of legislation that ensures that people with disabilities have equal rights and opportunities is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Enacted in 1990, it has since been instrumental in increasing accessibility and inclusion in various aspects of public life.

Video transcripts and alternative image text are some techniques that make your site accessible for your audience (we will cover these later in more detail). The purpose of this law is to ensure that persons with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as others. Like other civil rights laws that protect people based on age, race, color, gender, national origin, and religion, the ADA provides civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities.

A Brief History of ADA Compliance and the Internet

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires that every federal, state and local government website adhere to accessibility standards. In 2001, this legislation was revised to include internet and intranet information and applications.

In 2017, the Southern District of Florida decided the case of Gil v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., ruling that the ADA regulations in Section 508 applied to Winn-Dixie’s website. The company is currently appealing this decision. The Ninth Circuit Court made a notable ruling in October 2019, in the case of Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, that the ADA regulations apply to the Domino’s Pizza website. However, the court did not offer specific guidelines as to what standards of accessibility should apply. The ruling leaves it up to the courts to decide on a case-by-case basis whether ADA regulations apply to the websites of individual companies. Recent developments have caused a spike in lawsuits against websites that do not adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, which are the leading standards for accessibility practices.

Why should I make an ADA compliant website?

Many reasons exist why you should follow ADA website compliance. There are four key reasons why supporting website accessibility is important.

1. It makes everyone in your audience feel included

If you don’t accommodate people with disabilities, you’re excluding a portion of your audience. One out of five people in the United States lives with a disability. If you have a website, it’s highly likely that people with disabilities will visit your site and it’s important that your site is accessible to all users.

Compliance standards ensure that your site is inviting to all visitors of your website. It enables every visitor to your site to navigate your pages in the way that suits them best.

2. It enhances your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking

Improving your site’s ADA accessibility not only helps users but it also improves your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. Video transcripts and alternative image text are two ways to make your site more accessible for your audience. This is the process of giving search engines more information about your site.

It helps search engines to understand the content of your site better and decide where to rank it in search results. The more search engines understand about your site, the better they can position your website in the search results. This raises your site’s ranking and makes it more accessible for disabled visitors to access your content.

3. It improves your reputation

Building an ADA accessible site is a great way to build your business’s reputation. By trying to meet the needs of your audience, you show them that you really care about them. Imagine a person with a disability visiting several competitor’s websites to learn more about what they are offering.

If those competitors do not have an ADA compliant website, they could potentially deter users from exploring their site. After that, they find your website. Your website conforms to ADA compliance standards.

Your visitors happily browse around your site, collecting all the information they need. This is an uplifting experience for your brand. Your customers are satisfied and they talk about it to other people.

Making your site more inclusive makes for a better experience, which in turn encourages more people to contribute to a good reputation for your business.

4. It increases site usability

Your website is about the user experience. You want to make sure visitors enjoy their time on your website. If a lead has a negative experience on your site, they will leave your page quickly and go elsewhere.
Following ADA compliance ensures that all visitors to your site have a good experience. It allows you to deliver more valuable insights to your audience and to tackle any areas where user experience might be lacking.

Who needs to follow ADA requirements?

Having understood the meaning of ADA compliance, you may be wondering how it applies to you.

Entities required to comply with ADA standards encompass:

• State and local government bodies
• Establishments accessible to the general public

Some typical businesses that are impacted include:

• Retail shops
• Financial institutions
• Accommodations
• Healthcare facilities
• Medical practices
• Eateries
• Cinema venues

Since ADA covers electronic and information technology, including the Internet and websites, it applies to almost all businesses and webmasters. Websites and their designs typically do not deliberately ignore ADA requirements.
Whether or not ADA compliance is applicable to your circumstances, you want to build a website that is accessible to all users. It helps you connect with your audience and ensures that you provide a great experience for everyone.

What Steps Can I Take to Achieve ADA Website Compliance?

It is very difficult to identify clear cut standards, that is why new legislation is being discussed right now. WCAG is a framework for setting general standards. Following the WCAG principles ensures that your site is accessible to almost every user. It begins by examining the various types of disabilities that necessitate accommodation, guided by the following key principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

Perceivable: Providing alternatives for the senses

Most websites are built to give you a mostly visual experience. Visual accessibility is often an afterthought during the design process for many web designers. It’s very easy to build a site that isn’t accessible to people with visual impairments without a bit of thought. To ensure a better experience for all users, your site needs to be accessible for screen readers.

For those who need help there are screen-readers that are essential web-navigation tools that are readily available. As true to their name, they turn your website from a visual experience to an audible one. Standard text pages may not present too many problems, but it’s worth investigating some alternatives for purely non text content like images and videos. Alt-text for your images is another thing that helps keep a smooth user experience, in case your user is using a screen reader, or if the user just doesn’t want to look at images. A picture can say a thousand words, but sometimes a succinct, vivid phrase is all that is needed.

While videos share similarities, they can be difficult to summarize with basic alt text. Closed captioning or a transcript can be a huge benefit to your video content and make it more accessible to users. In the case of creating visually appealing videos, a detailed description of the content can be very helpful.

Considerate web design isn’t just helpful for those who are fully blind but can also benefit users who are not fully blind but have visual impairments. Make sure your text and fonts are large and easy to read. White space should be embraced, as it improves clarity, and a readable font should be more important than a decorative font for practicality. Contrast for individuals with color blindness is an often-neglected aspect. While your company’s colors may be noticeable to some, a page with poor contrast can be almost invisible to others.

Operable: Ensuring that anyone can use your site

The first step to achieving ADA website compliance is to observe your website, but this is only the beginning. If your website is not accessible to individuals who cannot physically engage with it, they will not be able to use your services. Some people with cognitive disorders or neurological or motor skill impairments find it difficult or even impossible to navigate certain websites. What steps can we take to prevent this?

It begins with well thought out navigation and heading tags (h1, h2, h3, etc.) in a proper structure. You need to make sure that your website is navigable even without a mouse, i.e. it should be navigable using a keyboard. In certain cases, clicks and mouse movements can be quite challenging to navigate for some users. A well-organized site navigation serves as an excellent indicator, which is crucial for the following principle: clarity.

Additionally, you want to make sure that users have enough time to read and interact with your content. Moving or disappearing elements need to be visible long enough for all users to understand them. Seizures and physical reactions need to be considered and features designed so they don’t trigger these.

Understandable: Keep it simple and clean

Easily understandable content is another important factor in ADA website compliance. First, you begin with well planned navigation with heading tags (h1, h2, h3, etc) in a logical order. Make sure the relevant and useful links on your site are easily accessible and well organized. The instructions provided via the text must be easily understood by users. Descriptive hyperlink text is essential; instead of using “click here,” try “click here for more about our service packages.” It tells the user what to expect and gives clear guidance on the next action to take.

Consider the experience of a screen reader user; If people can’t figure out how to navigate your site by reading, they probably can’t access all of its content.

Robust: Being a reliable website

The simplest concept to understand is probably robustness, but the trickiest to implement. A good website follows HTML and CSS coding standards. If you code effectively, it also ensures that any supportive applications users might make use of can’t misinterpret your website. If you’re feeling overwhelmed at the thought of reviewing your programming, don’t worry. A well-regarded content management system with trusted plugins and regularly updated is a good way to keep up with advancing technologies.

What Steps Should I Take to Ensure My Website is ADA Compliant?

Here are three methods to ensure your website meets ADA compliance:

1. If you have the know how, take matters into your own hands — Use the tools to personally address all the issues on your website.
2. To make sure that your website complies with all the standards, it would be wise to seek the help of a professional web development agency to thoroughly check each page of your website and fix all the problems that may prevent it from passing the compliance tests.
3. Add a third-party widget or tool to your website that allows users to manage things like readability.