Website ADA Compliance

Basics of an ADA Compliance Audit

To ensure your organization’s website achieves ADA compliance, our expert team conducts a comprehensive ADA compliance audit.

This service identifies problem areas limiting users with disabilities access.

What’s included in an ADA compliance audit?

1. We’ll begin by evaluating your website according to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This formal ruleset is designed to facilitate accessibility, which works in accordance with ADA compliance’s purpose of guaranteeing equal opportunity for disabled individuals.
2. Our team engages in disabled user testing, which determines accessibility challenges and highlights problem areas within your website. This step also tests the efficacy of auto-scan results, which are designed to automatically identify non-compliant features.
3. Digital Authority Partners’ ADA compliance experts gather and analyze everything and recommend the best options.
4. Once we agree upon solutions, we’ll deliver recommended fixes for every identified error within your website.

To facilitate ADA compliance according to the most up-to-date standards, our audits are based on WCAG 2.1 guidelines. This is the most updated version of WCAG, designed to ensure that all users can access information, navigate your website, understand your content, and enjoy the same experience as others.

From our audit, you’ll have a clear picture of how to upgrade your website to achieve 100% ADA compliance.

Why is ADA Compliance So Important?

ADA compliance is important for two reasons:

1. Facilitating accessibility for all users, regardless of disability.
2. Eliminating liability, which can lead to lawsuits or other negative outcomes for your organization.

ADA compliance is important because it achieves the goal of the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design. Ensuring Americans with disabilities have equal access to electronic information, such as websites.

ADA compliance ensures every user, regardless of disability, enjoys the same experience on your site. That includes the ability to access information, navigate the site, and comprehend all content.

ADA compliance also helps you avoid litigation.

If your website (and other information technology) doesn’t follow ADA recommendations, you are vulnerable to costly lawsuits and fines.

In contrast, full ADA compliance affords your organization several benefits, including:

• Reduced legal risk
• Elevated brand perception
• Larger target audiences
• More organic traffic
• Better SEO practices
• Enhanced user experiences

Topic 3: Common ADA Compliance Issues that Should Be Solved to Avoid Costly Legal Costs

ADA compliance ensures equal access to digital content for all users, including those with disabilities. A failure to deliver that level of accessibility within your website may prove to be a costly mistake.

ADA lawsuits are no longer a rare occurrence, in recent years, a spate of enterprises have lost compliance lawsuits including Amazon, Fox News, Domino’s Pizza, Netflix and others.

If your organization is caught in the crosshairs,you could face fines up to $75,000 for the first ADA web accessibility offense.

Let’s look at two of the most common ADA compliance issues to protect you from these financial penalties.

• Fonts

More than 25 million Americans have vision issues, which is why ADA compliance requires particular font specifications. The font size, color, and contrast between text and background should all follow ADA recommendations.

It’s also important to allow users to increase or decrease text size with the use of an accessible slider.

• Alt Descriptions

Due to the fact that screen readers and other accessibility tools can’t “read” visuals, you must include alternative text descriptions so disabled users can understand what’s being shown.

It’s also important not to include important information as a visual.

Failure to properly handle visuals and alt descriptions are among the most common ADA compliance issues leading to financial penalties.

What are the Types of ADA Compliance Issues I Should Care About?

If you don’t want to get slapped with a hefty fine, you should place a high priority on the ADA compliance of your website.

Yet many organizations and companies don’t know where to start, and even fewer know which compliance issues they should care about most.

That’s why Digital Authority Partners is here to cover some of the most common and important ADA compliance issues…

• Perceivable Information

All users should be able to access the information included within your website. That means visuals should be accompanied by alternative text, videos should include captions, and technology or tools should be used to present information in multiple ways without losing meaning.

• Easy Navigation

The most important aspect of operability is making all functionality available from a keyboard but also making it simple to use inputs other than a keyboard.

ADA compliance requires you to make it easy for anyone, including those with disabilities, to navigate your website.

• Comprehension

All users should have an equal opportunity to understand the content on your website. To achieve this goal, start with the text. Use large font sizes and colors that contrast well against the background.

You should also care about presenting content in predictable ways, which helps users comprehend the information.

• Equal Experience

To ensure that all users enjoy the same experience, optimize the compatibility of your website with accessibility tools.

How Can I Ensure My Website is ADA Compliant?

You know the benefits of ADA compliance both for your organization and your audience—greater access for people with disabilities, legal protection, and more. 

The question now becomes: How can you ensure that you have an ADA-compliant website?

This journey begins with your organization’s commitment to web accessibility. Align all departments and personnel regarding your focus on meeting compliance standards.

Second, execute a comprehensive ADA compliance audit. From coding to fonts to alt text and beyond, compliance experts evaluate your website against the standards of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG.

This audit reveals accessibility issues throughout your website, which leaves you with problems to solve.

When you choose a digital agency with experience in ADA compliance, like Digital Authority Partners, the audit team explores various ways to resolve those problems.

ADA compliance teams implement necessary changes and explain the reasoning behind each one.

Finally, ensuring your website is ADA compliant means continuing to review and optimize your website over time. As the digital world evolves, so do compliance standards. Commit to consistent website reviews and updates to keep your website accessible.

Roles of an ADA Compliance Consultant

From a macro perspective, an ADA compliance consultant evaluates your website to make it accessible for all users, including those with disabilities, and delivers protection from accessibility-related lawsuits.

ADA compliance consultants act as your own personal accessibility expert. This person or team is well versed in the details of ADA compliance and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards.

Through a deep ADA compliance audit, your consultant evaluates every aspect of your website to identify non-accessible features or characteristics.

Audits evaluate:

• Code
• Fonts
• Visuals
• Media
• Alt Text
• Hyperlinks
• Keyboard Access
• Language
• Colors
• And more

Your ADA compliance consultant then takes on the role of strategist, discovering the most efficient ways to resolve the non-accessible aspects of your website.

To achieve ADA compliance, the consultant then works with your team to implement recommended adjustments.

Should we do the work in-house?

Your organization is committed to achieving ADA compliance and making your website accessible to all users.

That’s wonderful, but should you rely on the experts or attempt an in-house compliance overhaul?

This comes down to whether or not you have:

• Knowledge of ADA compliance and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards.
• An understanding of how to evaluate your website.
• The technical expertise to analyze and adjust aspects of your site, like coding.
• The ability to execute disabled user testing.
• The time to audit, adjust, and monitor your website.

Without a background in digital information and web accessibility, you’ll be forced to commit significant man hours to the endeavor of comprehending all accessibility guidelines.

Without experience in web development, you’ll struggle to evaluate how those WCAG standards apply to your website.

Without technical web expertise, you won’t be able to make the necessary coding adjustments to achieve compliance.

Without access to disabled user testing, you can never know how accessible your website is for users with disabilities.

Rather than wasting time and resources to seek “good enough” compliance, most organizations prioritize efficiency and results by bringing in expert consultants.

Topic 8: Why Should I Bring In Experts?

While the vast majority of organizations and companies don’t have the characteristics or capabilities required to comply, an ADA compliance consultant checks every box.

Perhaps the most important reason to leave ADA compliance to consultants is the potential financial ramifications of non-compliance.

Companies like Amazon and Nike have faced fines and other legal trouble for their inability to achieve ADA compliance. And while those penalties may seem like a drop in the bucket for such massive companies, the same penalties can be crippling for smaller organizations.

Consider that the first ADA compliance violation can cause a $75,000 fine.

To shield you against these types of financial consequences, and to make your website accessible to all users, top consultants can execute every required step on the road to compliance…

• A comprehensive audit of your website.
• A detailed roadmap to compliance through required adjustments.
• Data-backed strategies to implement those adjustments.
• Disabled user testing to ensure accessibility and compliance.

Protect yourself and achieve ADA compliance with the help of an expert team.