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How to Build an Accessible Website through ADA Compliance

ADA-compliant web design is a hot topic, but not for the right reasons. Read on as we discuss ADA compliance and how you can build an accessible website.

Mandeep Singh 3 years ago

3 MIN READ

ADA-compliant web design is a hot topic, but not for the right reasons. Thousands of ADA Title III lawsuits were filed in the United States between January and June of 2018. According to projections, the number of lawsuits filed in 2018 will increase if the guidelines are not followed. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee that your web design is fully ADA compliant.

However, there are numerous steps that can be taken to improve the accessibility of your website. Despite the prevalence of predatory lawsuits, this law exists to ensure that everyone has equal access to the internet.

Read on as we discuss ADA compliance and how you can build an accessible website for all.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted in the 1990s to protect disabled Americans. This law governs wheelchair access, providing jobs to qualified disabled applicants, as well as services of telecommunications, transportation, and the internet, among others.

Title III of the ADA requires private businesses to be accessible to people with disabilities. All "barriers to services" must be removed, according to the law. This included crowded bathrooms and stairwells. Certain new "barriers to service" on commercial websites, which are also covered by Title III of the ADA, are difficult to detect.

The ADA Recommendations

While the ADA has gotten many businesses into trouble, the law is still silent on how to comply with the ADA, particularly in the case of websites. Thus, as a developer, you must know what to do.

Nothing fully shields you from ADA compliance liability. While tools are useful, they do not address all accessibility issues on your website. ADA compliance, like SEO, should be a continuous process.

The Development of an ADA-Compliant Website

To begin from scratch, an effective development strategy will include accessible HTML, Javascript, CSS, and more, such as:

Implement a Clean Code: Markup should be well-organized and structured, logically organized, and labeled accordingly.
Consider Text Resizing: With user control, the text should automatically resize to fit the size of the screen.
Provide Keyboard-Only Navigation: Your website should be fully navigable and accessible without the use of a mouse
Include a Skip To Content Button: This allows users to freely navigate between pages.

The Development of an ADA-Compliant Website

To begin from scratch, an effective development strategy will include accessible HTML, Javascript, CSS, and more, such as:

Implement a Clean Code: Markup should be well-organized and structured, logically organized, and labeled accordingly.
Consider Text Resizing: With user control, the text should automatically resize to fit the size of the screen.
Provide Keyboard-Only Navigation: Your website should be fully navigable and accessible without the use of a mouse.
Include a Skip To Content Button: This allows users to freely navigate between pages.

The SEO ADA Prerequisites

Many best practices for ADA compliance are covered by SEO plans. Many SEO principles are similar to those that apply to ADA compliance.

To ensure that new website content adheres to the same standards, they require ongoing compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, such as alt tags to images, title tags, transcripts and caption, making PDFs Text Searchable, and providing an accessibility statement.

The Best Practices for ADA Design

Implementing accessible creative and design practices can be difficult when it comes to design, brand guidelines and marketing.

Color contrast is recommended to improve a website's visual accessibility. Make use of a color wheel to determine which colors improve contrast.

The ADA Social Media Guidelines

When it comes to social media, it’s critical to be responsible for ensuring that the content you link to is accessible if you link to your own social media accounts (which everyone does).

Accessible Content: Businesses take various approaches to social media accessibility. All social media content on your website should be accessible, according to industry standards. Because of the volatility of social media sites, having your own website is a more dependable way to achieve ADA compliance
Accessible Embedded Content: Videos, podcasts, and other media embedded in your website, even if they were not created by you, must be accessible.
Links to Noncompliant Websites: We all understand how important links are to maintaining a healthy web presence, but exercise caution when linking to non-compliant websites. Use descriptive link text to combat this and use only links relevant to the destination.

Conclusion

A lot goes into making a website accessible, and the lack of clear guidelines can be frustrating. The important note here is to make sure your company doesn’t add to the record number of lawsuits previously filed. To ensure that your website is accessible to all users, you must follow best practices.

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