ADA compliance on websites has become a major accessibility concern for businesses. If you’re wondering, “Is my website ADA compliant?”, this guide will help you understand how to check and ensure ADA compliance for your site.

ADA compliance means meeting the standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), known as the Standards for Accessible Design. The Act lays down standards for accessibility in electronic and information technology, particularly website accessibility.

The website accessibility rules in the ADA apply to almost all businesses and web developers. You can check ADA compliance using an ADA-compliant website checker.

To comply with the Act, the information on your website has to be easy to access for people with disabilities. For instance, visually impaired people should be able to read your content using a text reader, browse through categories, and shop for products. You can ensure this through ADA compliance testing.

Read on to learn more.

Table of Contents:

Basics of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

ADA stands for the Americans with Disabilities Act, a comprehensive civil rights law in the United States that prohibits discrimination based on disability. The ADA regulations cover various aspects of public life, including employment, public services, and accommodations.

ADA Web Accessibility Compliance refers to the adherence of websites and digital content to the accessibility standards outlined in the ADA. This ensures that individuals with disabilities have equal access to information and services online.

As a result, web accessibility compliance involves designing and developing websites to accommodate people with various disabilities, such as visual, auditory, cognitive, and motor impairments. It aims to eliminate barriers and make digital content accessible to diverse users, promoting inclusivity and equal opportunities on the Internet.

A Look at Legalities Involved in Web Accessibility Compliance

Web accessibility compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) involves various legal considerations. ADA Title III is particularly relevant to businesses and institutions, mandating that places of public accommodation ensure effective communication and equal enjoyment of their services, which now extends to digital spaces like websites and apps.

Here are key legal aspects that businesses must understand and address to ensure web accessibility compliance and prevent potential legal challenges:

  1. Litigation and Settlements: Advocates often address non-compliance through legal actions, resulting in settlements. While court-appointed damages aren’t common, legal fees are typically covered.
  2. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): Although not a law, WCAG provides widely accepted web accessibility standards. Adhering to these guidelines can strengthen a business’s defense in legal matters.
  3. Department of Justice (DOJ) Guidance: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) outlining accessibility standards for websites and mobile applications covered by Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
  4. Risk of Lawsuits: Non-compliance increases the risk of lawsuits, potentially resulting in financial settlements, legal fees, and the implementation of accessibility improvements.
  5. Preventive Measures: Proactively ensuring web accessibility can mitigate legal risks. Regular audits, ongoing compliance efforts, and staying informed about evolving guidelines and legal precedents are essential.
  6. Global Accessibility Standards: Beyond ADA web accessibility guidelines, businesses should consider international standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are recognized globally.

Why is ADA Compliance Important?

ADA compliance is critical, not just because it is legally required. It also has several benefits for your business website and your customers.

1. It Promotes Equal Access

If your website is ADA-compliant, it is rendered more inclusive not only for people with disabilities but also for a broader range of people in general.

This also improves your brand’s image and reach.

2. It Avoids Legal Penalties

8,227 lawsuits under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) were brought in federal court in 2023. Ensuring ADA compliance helps avoid legal penalties and costly lawsuits.

In addition to legal fees, you may incur costs in settlements and rebuilding your website.

3. It Improves the User Experience

There are sound commercial reasons to ensure that your website is accessible in addition to avoiding lawsuits. WCAG 2-compliant digital products surpass rivals in the market by a factor of 50%.

The explanation is straightforward: approximately 25% of your prospective clients won’t be competent to use your website, which prevents them from the following:

  • Making purchases
  • Reserving services
  • Volunteering
  • Donating

The more accessible your website is, the more users you can reach.

How to Check ADA Compliance?

There are different ways to check whether your site is ADA-compliant, which are listed below.

1. Online Tools

There are online ADA compliance checkers such as WAVE and Lighthouse. These tools check certain features on your site, such as the color contrast, the size of the text, image alt text, and more. These online checkers can be used to assess one page at a time.

There are several web accessibility solutions that you can consider using to check your site for ADA compliance. Some tools focus on specific compliance aspects, such as color contrast.

Online tools like WAVE assess and grade your website according to a list of criteria that are based on ADA compliance requirements. There are also online tools that help you check how your website performs through a web accessibility report or evaluation.

There are free and paid options available.

For instance, you can enter a URL, and the tool will generate an accessibility report. This can help you check whether your site is accessible and what changes you need to incorporate for ADA web compliance.

2. Manual Assessment

You can also check if your website is ADA-compliant manually. A manual assessment involves checking each page of your website for accessibility.

You can do this using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which contain a checklist for ADA compliance.

There are four main principles for ADA compliance. These are given below. A WCAG compliance checker will check your website to ensure it meets the guidelines.

All the information and user interface features should be visible or perceivable. This includes text, images, and video.

If it is not possible to view it directly, an alternative option should be provided, like a transcript for a video.

Users should be able to use the interface easily. Any interactions or operations that cannot be performed should be removed.

People who visit your website should be able to navigate it and use its features.

The information and user interface should be easy to understand. The website and its content should be accessible.

For instance, this can be done by adding instructions for how to use a feature on the website.

The content should be robust, which means that different kinds of users should be able to use it. The website should provide different site visitors with the same experience.

For example, a video transcript should cover all the content of the video.

3. Professional Assessment

In most cases, manual accessibility testing is not feasible for a business. Given the consequences of not complying with ADA standards, it is worth considering a professional audit to ensure your website is ADA-compliant.

You can hire a professional web design agency to build an ADA-compliant website. Or else, you can hire an accessibility agency to audit your existing website for ADA compliance.

10 Proven Strategies to Make a Website Accessible to Everyone

An accessible website is a key element of digital inclusion. It ensures that everyone, irrespective of their physical ability, can access vital information on the internet.

But what makes a website accessible? Let’s see:

1. Understand the Guidelines and Standards

It’s important to understand the standards and accessibility requirements for websites before you start making your website accessible. The most extensively used set of principles for producing accessible web content is WCAG 2.1. Although these guidelines are usually used as the standard for digital accessibility, they are not enforceable by law.

2. Color Contrast Matters

For people with limited eyesight or color blindness, color contrast is crucial. Make sure there is a strong contrast between the text and backdrop colors to make the text readable. For standard text and large text, the WCAG specifies a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 and 3:1, respectively.

Almost 300 million people across the globe have some form of color blindness. Therefore, website owners must balance branding with color contrast. One of the best ways of doing this is by using black text on a white background and creating a more inclusive experience.

Let us take an example:

Apple’s website uses a minimalist design with high contrast between text and background. Its common theme is using black text on a white background and vice versa across its pages, which enhances accessibility. The website adheres to WCAG guidelines and is accessible to users with visual impairments.

3. Use Descriptive Headings

Making your website accessible to everyone requires using descriptive headings. Headings make your website easier to navigate and understand for those using screen readers and other assistive devices. Simply arrange your information using HTML heading tags (H1-H6) in a logical sequence that reflects the hierarchy of your content to employ descriptive headings.

The content that follows should be accurately summarized in the headings, which should be descriptive. Users will find it simpler to understand your website’s arrangement and structure as a result.

4. Use Alt Text for Images

Making your website accessible to all users requires using alt text for photos. Screen readers and other assistive technologies can read an image’s alt text, which is a brief description of the image. It makes it easier for those with visual impairments to comprehend an image’s information and its placement on a webpage.

To use alt text for images, simply add descriptive text in the “alt” attribute of the HTML image tag. Alt text should be concise, accurate, and convey the essential information of the image. In short, adding alt text to images is a simple and effective way to improve the digital accessibility of your website.

Let’s take an example:

A picture posted by Harvard University on X shows the track tryouts and how people have been running the steps at Harvard Stadium since it was built in 1903.

In this regard, a poor alt text would be “Harvard Runners.” However, a useful alt text can be “Harvard Stadium with two lone runners bounding up the steps.”

5. Include Captions and Transcripts for Multimedia

Add subtitles and multimedia transcripts to improve your website’s WCAG compliance score. Transcripts are written versions of video or audio content, whereas captions are text descriptions of audio content. Adding captions and transcripts to multimedia content helps people with hearing impairments to understand the content and context of the media.

To provide captions, add a text track to your video or audio file. To provide transcripts, create a text document that includes a written version of the audio content. Both captions and transcripts should be accurate, complete, and synchronized with the media.

Let’s take an example:

You can use YouTube’s automatic subtitles and caption feature using YouTube Studio and add transcripts and captions to your video content. As a video owner, you can make a few changes in YouTube posting settings, and you can make your website content accessible.

6. Ensure Keyboard Accessibility

Access to the keyboard is crucial for individuals who might be unable to use a mouse. Ensure that your website’s keyboard interface can access all of its features and that users can traverse it using only the Tab key.

Let’s take an example:

A website must offer a visual indicator with keyboard focus for sighted users. Web browsers provide focus indicators and can be shown as a border or highlight around the focused element. These outlines can be hidden by applying outline: 0 or outline: none CSS to focusable elements.

7. Use ARIA Roles and Attributes

ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a set of attributes that can be added to HTML elements to make them more accessible. Use ARIA roles and attributes to provide additional information to screen readers and other assistive technologies.

Let’s take an example:

The website 1% for the Planet follows its objective of “Putting people and the planet over profit,” and through its website, it shows its commitment to accessibility. The website uses high-contrast text, ARIA tags, and thorough HTML page structuring. The content representation is simple, and it is a fully mobile-responsive website.

8. Make Forms Accessible

Forms are an essential part of many websites, but they can be difficult to navigate for users with disabilities. Ensure that your forms are accessible by providing labels for each input field, using ARIA attributes, and ensuring that error messages are clear and easy to understand.

9. Provide Clear Navigation

For all users, but especially for those with disabilities, clear navigation is crucial. Make sure users can quickly locate what they’re looking for on your website and that the navigation is simple to understand. Make sure that your website’s navigation is consistent throughout by using labels for links and buttons that are clear and descriptive.

Let’s take an example:

Medium is a blogging platform that has a stylish and accessible website. Users can experience parallax images, animated backgrounds, easily tabbable pages, navigational links, visual flair, and simple content.

10. Test Your Website for Accessibility

It’s crucial to assess your website’s accessibility to ensure everyone can use it. The WAVE Online Accessibility Assessment Tool and the A11Y Accessibility Checker are some of the many tools that can be used to check whether your website conforms to the WCAG.

Let us look at the features of one of these tools:

  • WAVE is based on WCAG 2.1 Level AA and Section 508 standards and helps identify errors related to headings, links, images, forms, ARIA roles, color contrast, and structural elements.
  • Errors are annotated directly on the web page, which can help you identify which elements have issues.
  • Icons indicate errors and warnings for easy identification.
  • The tool allows you to view the code while checking for accessibility errors.

What are the Best Practices for ADA Compliance?

1. Accessible Content

Some ways to ensure that your content is accessible are given below:

  • Keep sentences short so they are easy to read
  • Use bullet points instead of long paragraphs
  • Use bold for important phrases
  • Use headings with a proper heading structure

2. Add Alt Text to Your Media Content

Adding alt text to images, audio, video, and controls ensures that viewers can read a description of the content even if they cannot hear it or see it properly.

Screen reader users may become irritated by lengthy alt text and may have it cut away. Generally speaking, the alt text should not exceed 125 characters. You can apply one of the lengthy description techniques covered within “intricate pictures and pictures of text” later in this section if more than a simple phrase is required.

3. Use Color Contrast

An ADA-compliant website checker will check color contrast. Color contrast is an important part of user-friendly design and makes your website more visually accessible.

To attain Level AA compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), you need:

  • A contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text
  • A contrast ratio of 3:1 for wide text

Red and green text are frequently used on websites to denote achievement or failure communications. Nonetheless, the most prevalent type of color vision impairment is red-green color blindness (CVD).

4. Provide Transcripts and Captions

Transcripts and captions for audio and video content ensure that people with hearing impairments can still read the content.

A basic transcript is a text rendition of the speech and non-speech audio data required to comprehend the content. Descriptive transcripts also include text descriptions of the visual details required to comprehend the content.

For instance, leading e-learning platforms can ensure that users with hearing impairments can access the information presented in the videos. Transcripts also benefited users who preferred reading over watching videos.

5. Use Descriptive Links and HTML Labels

Descriptive links tell viewers where a link will lead them. HTML labels indicate the function of a button.

For example, an “x” sign indicates that clicking on it will close the pop-up.

Case Studies to Explore

Here are two case studies that capture the essence of ADA compliance and how businesses have effectively addressed accessibility challenges:

1. Case Study 1: Domino’s Pizza Accessibility Lawsuit

Domino’s Pizza was sued in 2019 by a blind customer who claimed the company’s mobile app and website did not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The court’s decision in the client’s favor emphasized the need for websites to be user-friendly for those with disabilities. Domino’s was mandated to comply with ADA standards for its online platforms.

The case served as a reminder to companies of how important it is to make sure their digital services are accessible to all users in order to avoid legal issues and grow their clientele.

2. Case Study 2: Walmart’s ADA Compliance Efforts

Walmart was sued in 2018 for not making its website accessible to people with impairments. In response, the business redesigned its website to comply with WCAG 2.1 guidelines and included features like keyboard navigation and screen reader assistance. Walmart’s measures enhanced consumer satisfaction and assisted in averting additional legal concerns. The makeover enhanced Walmart’s image and showed the company’s commitment to diversity.

Summing Up

ADA compliance helps your website stay legally compliant as well as user-friendly. Using an ADA-compliant website checker is one of the simplest ways to check ADA compliance.

Are you looking for accessibility solutions to make your website ADA-compliant? Head out to Hurix Digital!

We offer design solutions to help make your website more accessible and ensure ADA compliance. Contact us today to learn more!