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Is Your Website ADA Compliant? Here Is a Checklist To Help
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Marketing & SEOHealthcare
August 12, 2024

Is Your Website ADA Compliant? Here Is a Checklist To Help

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Pranjal Bora
Pranjal Bora is the Head of Product Management at Digital Authority Partners. After working at Sam's Club, Sears and...
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A Guide to ADA Compliance ADA Compliance Web Development ADA standards Website Development
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ADA compliance is important for businesses to consider because of its benefits and the steep fines that come with non-compliance (up to $75,000 for the first offense). Following the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines helps you serve users better.

Here are what you need to know about the ADA and what you can do to stay within the rules:

  • ADA and what it means for your website.
  • How to measure your website’s compliance.
  • Five strategies to improve your ADA compliance score.

There is a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes.

Let’s go!

To learn how Digital Authority Partners can create a standout website for you, watch this video!

 

ADA and How It Affects Your Business Website

web design_Some aspects of your business are better left to professionals. Web design is one of them simply because it requires much time and constant attention to many details. If you think your Chicago-based company needs the help of Chicago web design services, you might be right. Outsourcing your web design can be beneficial for a variety of reasons. This article discusses why you might want to put your web design needs in the hands of experts. We talk about the following: Expertise and experience Time and cost efficiency Customization and flexibility Technical expertise and support There is a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes. Let’s go! ____________________________________________________________________________ To learn how Digital Authority Partners can create a standout website for you, watch this video! INSERT VIDEO HERE ____________________________________________________________________________ Expertise and Experience Entrusting your web design needs to a team of professionals can be a game-changer. Instead of spending years building an in-house team, you can outsource web design and immediately get needed expertise. The upfront cost may be expensive, but it is often more cost-efficient in the long-run. Outsourcing your web design needs gives you access to a wealth of expertise and experience by web design professionals. These two important factors are indispensable when crafting an appealing and functional website. Working with Chicago web design services pair syour business with people who have a keen understanding of design principles. Experienced web designers understand and have mastered the applications of design elements such as color theory, typography, imagery, and layout. They know that the strategic use of these elements can elevate your brand’s website. They grasp that colors conjure emotions, typography imparts personality, and imagery tells a story. Their expertise and experience allow them to easily create a user-friendly interface. Furthermore, outsourcing your web design to experts means having a sense of security. Taking on web design needs yourself means keeping up with the latest trends and frequently making changes to stay up with the latest security patches. This is often a labor intensive task. By working with experts, you eliminate this task. As industry professionals, web design service providers keep up with the latest design trends and best practices. This dedication allows them to create contemporary and engaging websites. Time and Cost Efficiency In the previous section, we mentioned that outsourcing your web design needs is cost-effective. In truth, it is also time efficient. Your Chicago business can save time and money by working with web design experts. How exactly is outsourcing web design time- and cost-efficient? Building a website from scratch requires a large amount of time and resources - both in labor and cash. Through hard work, your team can create a website. But are the results worth all of the effort? Assuming they have limited expertise and experience, the process can be slow and inefficient. Mistakes can be made, and the result is not guaranteed to be profitable. Instead, you can pay web design experts to do the work. The time they free up on web design tasks allows you to focus on other critical aspects of your business. Meanwhile, you can be confident that others are competently and efficiently taking care of both protecting your business with best security practices and also making your business appealing to anyone visiting your site. As mentioned, hiring a web design agency may involve a large upfront cost. However, when done right, you can expect to get back this cost and more. With the help of a team of experts, you can rest assured that your website is optimized for search engines, ensuring higher visibility, and driving more traffic to your site. Customization and Flexibility Let us assume your team can make a suitable website. The question then becomes, “Is it good enough?” Probably not if you want to stand out in the fiercely competitive Chicago business market. The expertise, broad experience and efficiency offered by web design professionals is accompanied by customization and flexibility. Part of their job is to understand your business goals, target audience, and brand identity. Mastery of these factors allows them to create a website that aligns with your brand’s vision, values, credibility, and personality. This grasp of the nuance also enables them to include unique features perfectly suited to your website, such as layout and color scheme, imagery, clear menus, intuitive navigation, and more. As you probably realize, your web design needs do not end once the site is live. They continue and change as long as you keep the website running. As your business grows, your website has to evolve as well. If you want to stay on top of changing needs and incorporate them in your web design in a timely manner, this continuous work is best outsourced to a professional. Web design experts bring flexibility in terms of scalability. They allow you to easily adapt and make changes as needed. Whether adding new pages, integrating e-commerce capabilities, or optimizing the site for mobile devices, experts can efficiently handle the task. Additionally, outsourcing gives you flexibility in terms of tapping into a global talent pool. You can choose from among various web design professionals with diverse backgrounds and access to a broader range of perspectives and skills. Technical Expertise and Support Web design is about more than an appealing layout. If you have ever tried your hand at web design, you understand that you have to manage technicalities too. A well-designed website goes beyond just looking good. It also works well. Achieving proper functionality and performance of a website are outcomes that a professional agency provides. Any good web design service provider can optimize your site for speed and responsiveness. They can also ensure compatibility across different browsers and devices. Furthermore, outsourcing your web design needs provides ongoing technical support. If problems or technical issues arise after launching the website, you can rely on professionals to promptly troubleshoot and resolve them. Meanwhile, you can focus on running your business without worrying about the technical aspects of maintaining a website. Summing Up It is understandable to hesitate when it comes to outsourcing, especially if you have never done it. However, even though outsourcing can be a big financial investment for your business, when done well, an excellent web design should yield a good return on investment (ROI). These risks, however, are worth the rewards of time and cost efficiency, technical support, and ROI over time. The key is to find a reliable Chicago web design service. Contact Digital Authority Partners (DAP) to learn how we can help you build the right website for your brand.

ADA, specifically Title III, which focuses on private businesses, is a civil rights law that aims to ensure equal access to facilities and spaces for all Americans. That means removing any barriers or adding a means of access to afford those with disabilities the same experiences.

In a nutshell, it means paying attention to the challenges of people with disabilities and how their experiences differ from others. For example, when designing your website, how often did you consider accessibility for people with visual impairments or problems with focusing?

Various aspects of your website affect the user experience (UX), but that number increases for people with disabilities who may need extra help to have the same access as others. Apart from being the law, complying with ADA boosts UX for everyone else, which adds to your search engine optimization (SEO).

More and more users rely on mobile devices to search online, meaning that text font size is an existing concern. Adjusting it to meet ADA rules is a small step, but it ultimately benefits your users. 

Another change that comes with mobile search is the use of voice search, which would help users with vision impairments access your website. In fact, everyone can use it to interact with your website through screen readers. Overall, following ADA is rewarding for businesses.

How to Identify and Measure Your Compliance Level

Due to the high stakes of failing to comply with ADA, you might wonder how you can assess your fit within its guidelines. Moreover, you probably want to know where to begin making website changes. While ADA sets the rules, it gives no specifics.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are, therefore, necessary. The WCAG sets the standard for what and how websites meet ADA’s rules. It has seen many changes over the years, and the current one in use today is WCAG 2.2, which you should follow.

It contains a conformance section with grades ranging from A to AAA. Each level is present and indicated for each guideline to make it easier to follow and apply. If you prefer to automate or outsource an assessment, note that some tools and companies exist for that exact purpose. 

5-Point Checklist To Make Your Website More ADA Compliant

ADA compliance_Paper with Americans with Disabilities Act ADA on a table

ADA compliance benefits everyone, but how do you keep up with the points needed to stay within ADA (and WCAG) guidelines? Make a simple checklist to ensure that you hit all of the critical points. Using a tool, such as the Lighthouse extension for Chrome, helps find pages with issues.

Here is a quick five-point checklist to use to start or improve your ADA compliance:

     1. Keep Your Website Designs Minimalist

The best way to start ADA compliance is with a simple, minimalist website design. This means avoiding flashy colors, clashing palettes, and fancy fonts that do not add much to UX. Design is vital because typography, including typeface, point size, and spacing are all important. 

The wrong font size or typeface, however, can result in a lawsuit because of how much it renders any text unreadable to someone with vision impairments or dyslexia. Text color and its contrast with your website’s background may also hinder people with disabilities from fully using your service.

     2. Enable Voice Recognition for Browsing

Voice recognition is another quick fix to apply to improve ADA compliance. Many people with disabilities, including people with learning disabilities, use screen readers to interact with online content. Enabling voice recognition on your website gives them access to your content.

With screen readers, people are able to use voice search to browse your website, so enable the voice recognition feature. Its use goes beyond that. Voice search should also be included in your SEO strategy.

     3. Give Users Agency and Time to Focus

Other areas of concern for ADA compliance are agency and focus. Some people with disabilities may struggle to maintain their focus. Allowing them to set their own pace is vital to giving them access. For example, auto-playing videos, animated images, and auto-scrolling are distracting elements.

As much as possible, turn off these features or allow users to manually turn them off to keep them focused on other parts of the page. Use spacing to segment your pages and make them easy to navigate. Keep any distracting elements to the barest minimum allowed, or none at all.

     4. Add Meta Tags to Rich Media Content

Meta tags, particularly image alt tags on rich media, support screen readers. That makes them crucial to increasing website accessibility and ADA compliance. Accurate and descriptive meta tags allow individuals with vision difficulties to enjoy rich media content.

Any images, videos, and photos on your page should have relevant tags that provide context or add to the person’s understanding of the text’s content. While they might not see or fully enjoy the media as another person would, providing as similar an experience as possible is important.

     5. Include Audio and Video Transcriptions

Like meta tags, transcripts help people using screen readers access and consume video and audio content. Transcripts and captions are necessary to cover all bases for providing accessibility to your website content.

People with hearing disabilities also benefit from transcripts, especially for audio-only content, because they would otherwise have no means of consuming it. Captions are part of the video, but transcripts come as a separate file that you must link to the audio or video file.

Summing Up

Everyone deserves to enjoy equal access to the same content. People with disabilities face barriers to accessibility and usability, but that does not mean you cannot adjust your website to accommodate their needs. ADA compliance also boosts UX for everyone else, so it is a win-win. 

Need help making your website ADA-compliant? Contact Digital Authority Partners (DAP) to learn how we can help.

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