A big part of ensuring complete website accessibility for visitors with disabilities is adhering to ADA compliance rules. ADA, which stands for the Americans with Disabilities Act, regulates the standards for accessible design.
In simple terms, ADA compliance for websites refers to the rules you must follow to ensure your site is accessible to people with disabilities.
In this article, we'll discuss what ADA compliance is, why your website should be ADA compliant, and how to ensure it checks all the ADA boxes. Finally, we’ll look into an AI-powered accessibility tool that can help you achieve ADA compliance seamlessly.
Table of Contents
- What Is ADA Compliance?
- Which Websites Must Be ADA-Compliant?
- How To Meet ADA Compliance Standards
- ADA Compliance Checklist
- How To Check if Your Website Is ADA Compliant
- What if Your Website Doesn’t Meet ADA Compliance Standards?
- Make Your Website ADA Compliant With AccessiBe
- What Is ADA Compliance: Key Takeaways
- What Is ADA Compliance FAQs
What Is ADA Compliance?
The ADA compliance means that all information and electronic technology, such as websites, must be made accessible for people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was established in 1990 to help people with disabilities overcome institutional and technological bias that keeps them from accessing information.
For example, the Act led to the widespread adoption of wheelchair access ramps and other equal-access accommodations that have become a regular part of workplaces and public spaces. It specifically requires organizations to provide suitable accommodation and means of work for employees with disabilities.
Which Websites Must Be ADA-Compliant?
All websites and web-based applications must be ADA-friendly. This includes sites run by:
- State and local government institutions
- Businesses that serve the public, such as schools, restaurants, hotels, banks, law offices, postal service, public transport, etc.
- Private organizations with more than 15 employees
- NGOs that serve the public
In terms of websites, ADA compliance depends on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which serve as a roadmap and a set of instructions on how businesses and organizations can optimize their websites for accessibility.
WCAG outlines three levels of accessibility compliance: A, AA, and AAA. The minimum level to ensure ADA compliance is AA, which means the website is accessible to almost all users. We will discuss the three levels of WCAG compliance in more detail below.
In a nutshell, all modern-day websites should be ADA-compliant and accessible to anyone, including people with disabilities. This should be the norm, even in rare cases when ADA standards do not apply to specific organizations.
How To Meet ADA Compliance Standards
To ensure your website complies with ADA standards, the first thing to do is go through the WCAG guidelines whose three-level system goes as follows:
- Level A: The website is accessible to some users.
- Level AA: The website is accessible to almost all users.
- Level AAA: The website is accessible to all users.
Although, as stated above, reaching level AA is good enough to be considered ADA compliant, you should ideally strive to make the website 100% accessible to all users and turn it into an all-inclusive environment.
To get there, you need to focus on the four WCAG’s core principles:
- Perceivable: Website visitors should be able to see, locate, and view all the website’s information and content, such as text, images, and videos. In case a user cannot read a text or listen to a video, a website should offer an alternative way of consuming this content. For example, listening to the written text or reading the video’s captions.
- Operable: Users should be able to successfully and easily navigate the website and use all of its features and functionalities, such as site maps and specific widgets. For this, you need a web developer who is aware of ADA compliance standards because they have to write the operability standards into the HTML code.
- Understandable: Content and features on your website — images, videos, calculators, forms, tools, etc. — must be understandable to all users. To implement this concept, provide instructions that come with the navigation menu, forms, and any other features on your website.
- Robust: Your website should provide the same overall user experience to people with disabilities as your non-disabled visitors. Even if users with disabilities utilize assistive technologies and no matter how content on your website is delivered, the UX should be universal, and all users should be treated the same.
ADA Compliance Checklist
To ensure you don’t miss any important guidelines covered by the ADA, use our checklist to keep track of these essentials.
- All non-text content should have text alternatives, except for situations exempt from the guidelines.
- Captions, descriptions, and sign language interpretation should be provided for prerecorded audio.
- Captions are provided for live audio or an alternative that will give the same information.
- The content is adaptable, i.e., can be presented in different forms without losing its meaning and structure.
- Multiple orientations, such as portrait or landscape, to view and operate content should be available.
- The images, text, audio, and other content on your website can be accessed easily by users and tailored to preference (e.g. videos or audios can be paused or stopped, volume can be controlled, text can be resized to 200%, etc.)
- Text and images of text should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, except for large-scale text and images (3:1) and incidental text or logotypes (no contrast requirement).
- Every function has a keyboard shortcut and is adaptable to the keyboard interface.
- All content gives enough time for the user to read/see it. This includes the option to pause, stop, or hide the content, as well as warnings if an inactivity timeout is due.
- Double-check that your content is not susceptible to causing seizures — all flashes in the content mustn't be more than 3 times.
- Web pages should be navigable and have clear titles, headings, and labels that describe their purpose or subject.
- Every link can be seen just by hovering over it and the link text appears.
- Single pointer actions (one click, double click, long hold, etc.) are operable to ease access to the site.
- All information is understandable by providing several language options, explanations for uncommon words and phrases, expanded abbreviations, and readability on a secondary reading level, etc.
- The UI is direct and doesn’t change context without user input.
- Errors are clearly communicated to the user in text.
- The code is entirely in accordance with the HTML Living Standard (HTML5).
Of course, this list is not exhaustive and should be adjusted depending on your website. It's also worth noting that apps are subject to ADA compliance as well, with potentially different sets of rules, and the top software development experts can be of help.
How To Check if Your Website Is ADA Compliant
To evaluate your website’s compliance with ADA guidelines, you can resort to the following methods:
1. Use Free Tools
Numerous accessibility testing tools, such as Lighthouse and WAVE, are free and let users look into their text size, image alt text, color contrast, and so on. Plenty of other ADA compliance checker tools can be found on W3C’s website. These tools help assess all the vital elements that constitute an accessible website.
2. Do a Manual Audit
Checking your website if it’s ADA compliant via manual audit means assessing each site page for accessibility using the WCAG guidelines checklist above.
Businesses may find the manual checklist less practical, especially considering the possible repercussions of failing to meet ADA standards. Using one of the free tools or a professional audit to make sure your business is ADA-compliant may be a better option.
3. Require a Professional Evaluation
A professional ADA audit consists of hiring a team of specialists, usually an agency, that can independently evaluate your website’s accessibility. They can provide a specific plan of action to make your website ADA-compliant or implement it themselves.
Businesses that don’t have the time or the capacity to evaluate their website or prefer to leave this in the hands of professionals, could benefit greatly from investing in this service.
What if Your Website Doesn’t Meet ADA Compliance Standards?
In case your website doesn’t meet ADA compliance standards, you are liable and at risk of lawsuits and hefty financial fines.
A lawsuit could be filed against your business or a brand if people with disabilities can’t access and use your website. This is why it is vital to know, “What does ADA compliant mean for your websites?”, which companies ADA affects, and how to become ADA compliant.
The US Department of Justice provides recommendations on the ADA compliance guidelines, so you should ideally use them when making your website and its UX ADA-compliant.
While in most cases ADA non-compliance is not intentional, it doesn’t change the consequences. Unintentional skipping of guidelines that leads to a website not being accessible to anyone can result in costly lawsuits that can amount to thousands of dollars.
Non-compliance with ADA standards can also result in:
- Legal fees
- PR issues
- The costs of building an ADA-compliant website
Another potential loss from not making your website accessible to users with disabilities is the loss of customers. Approximately, 27% of people in the US have some type of disability. This makes for a potentially huge demographic that should be able to access and consume your website’s content.
Make Your Website ADA Compliant With AccessiBe
AccessiBe is an AI-based solution that helps web developers and designers make websites ADA and ECAG-compliant. It is an automated website accessibility tool used by more than 247,000 websites globally.
The tool simplifies and streamlines the accessibility process and achieves compliance via machine learning and computer vision technologies. With AccessiBe, websites can also get certifications of performance and accessibility statements.
AccessiBe makes sure online businesses can:
- Set up and run the tool in a matter of minutes
- Comply with existing accessibility legislation
- Attract new potential customers by expanding their market reach
AccessiBe's accessWidget comes in several billing plans, for both annual and monthly billing:
- Standard: $49/month for websites under 1,000 unique pages
- Advanced: $149/month for websites under 10,000 unique pages
- Advanced Plus: $349/month for websites under 100,000 unique pages
- Enterprise: Tailored solution with no page limit
What Is ADA Compliance: Key Takeaways
Having an ADA-compliant website plays a vital role in shaping a more inclusive digital environment where all users, regardless of their abilities, can access and interact with content seamlessly. As the world becomes increasingly interconnected through technology, businesses must prioritize accessibility to ensure that no one is left behind.
The Americans with Disabilities Act has set the groundwork for web accessibility standards, emphasizing the importance of creating digital experiences that cater to users with disabilities. Compliance with ADA guidelines, especially the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), not only mitigates legal risks but also fosters goodwill and trust among users, clients, and partners.
What Is ADA Compliance FAQs
1. What does ADA do?
ADA’s purpose is to eliminate discrimination against people with disabilities and ensure that they have full and equal access to employment opportunities, public services, accommodations, transportation, telecommunications, and other areas of public life.
It is a comprehensive civil rights law in the United States that aims to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities and promote equal opportunities in various aspects of life. The ADA was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H.W. Bush.
2. What qualifies as an ADA disability?
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of an individual. The definition includes people who have a record of such an impairment, even if they are not currently experiencing limitations, and those who are regarded as having a disability, even if they do not have an actual impairment.
The ADA doesn’t provide an exhaustive list of specific conditions that qualify as disabilities. Instead, the focus is on the impact of the impairment on an individual's ability to perform major life activities. Disabilities can be visible or invisible, temporary, or permanent, and can vary widely in nature and severity.
