Is Your Roseville Website ADA Compliant? The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires certain businesses to make accommodations for people with disabilities. Web content should be accessible to the blind, deaf, and those who must navigate by voice, screen readers or other assistive technologies.
ADA Compliance Increases Your Target Audience
If your website is not already ADA compliant, you are automatically missing out on millions of potential customers who cannot access your site due to their disabilities. In fact, there are nearly 50 million people with disabilities in the U.S., which means about 19 percent of this country has a disability. Many of them might be interested in your products or services, but once they arrive at your website, they won't be able to navigate easily enough to buy anything or even contact you, all because your website is only accessible to people without disabilities. Thus, they may move on to your competitors.1. Evaluate Your Current Site
First things first: What is the state of your current site? You can rate your own site using programs like WAVE or Lighthouse, and by manually testing the site with screen reader software. Use the ADA guidelines as a starting point to create a blueprint for your own site.
2. Choose the Right Graphics
Carefully chosen graphics are a big part of accessible websites. When you’re including graphics, they should not flash more than three times per second. Any more flashing, and you could inadvertently induce a seizure in someone who is browsing the page. Graphics should also have a description/caption that can be read aloud to the visually impaired. If you have informative or fun visual content, you want everyone to be able to enjoy and learn from it!
3. Add Alt-Text and Readable Fonts
Making your site perceivable for all potential users takes a lot of thoughtful choices. A variety of things fall under the umbrella of perception. To get started, provide alt-text for all images in your code. Alt-text captions allow site readers to describe your images audibly.
Fonts are another crucial component to accessibility. Use fonts that are easy to read, such as Georgia, Open Sans, and Quicksand. Avoid putting a light font color on a light background; a combination like yellow text on a pale background causes people to strain to read it. Equally problematic is a pale font on a stark black background. Stick to light backgrounds with dark for most of your content.
4. Make the Site Keyboard- and Pause-Friendly
The primary function of the “operable” category of ADA standards is to ensure your site can be navigated using a keyboard alone. Not all users are able to interact with a touchscreen or grip a mouse. This category also relates to the overall navigation. For instance, readers should be able to pause content or slow down automatic scrolling/slideshow movements. Eliminate any videos that autoplay and have a time-limit. And, of course, make sure that all video interactions and pausing can be completed using keyboard functions.
5. Remain Up-to-Date on Compliance Changes
Remember that ADA needs are ongoing. As new technologies are made available for people with disabilities, they should be accounted for in your web code. A good start is making sure the text easily readable and the code works with assistive readers, it’s true. But a truly compliant (and usable) ADA-compliant website will adopt new best practices as they emerge.
Creating an ADA-compliant website takes time. When you’re scoping out this project, allow several months — not days. Use this ADA Checklist to do a quick audit of your site today. If you answer “No” to even one question, you have work to do! Making your site compliant with the ADA means all users will feel comfortable on your site and be able to use it for its intended purpose. In the end,
