Make Your Website ADA Compliant

While ADA compliance isn’t mandatory for every business website, it should be. Open your business up to all your customers. If your business provides a service to customers, it should comply with ADA regulations provided your business meets the following criteria:

• You provide a service for the benefit of the public.
• You are a state or local agency.
• You have more than 15 employees. 

Even if your business’s website doesn’t meet the ADA’s compliance criteria, creating an ADA-compliant website ensures that you are serving your customers to the best of your ability.  
The ADA’s guidance on website accessibility has caused confusion because there are no explicit standards. Instead, the ADA recommends looking at existing technical standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). 
You want to ensure an effective website design with feature accessibility so everyone can navigate it easily, including individuals with vision issues, hearing loss and other differences.

• Audio files: Audio files that accompany text can make your website easily accessible for viewers who are blind or have low vision.
• Alt tags for images: Alt tags are text descriptions in HTML code that help create a mental picture of the images on your website. The assistive devices vision-impaired people use can convert alt tags to Braille or read them aloud. Other images on your site – including dropdown menus, icons and buttons – also need alt tags.
• Images without text: Text-to-speech technology won’t be able to pick up on images that include text.
• Captions for videos: If you have video on your website, include captions to ensure deaf or hard of hearing visitors can understand and enjoy the content.
• Vision accommodations: For customers with vision challenges, make text-resizing options straightforward and use an optimal contrast ratio. 
• Optimized navigation systems: To better understand your site’s accessibility, use the up and down arrows, tab button, and other keyboard commands to navigate your website rather than relying on your mouse. This will help you determine where to add text-based navigation for those who use a keyboard only.
• Error alerts: If your website includes online forms customers must fill out, add error alerts so they know precisely what to correct. 

These are just a few ways to improve website accessibility. To learn more, consult the full WCAG. 

NEXT STEPS
When you’re ready to ensure that all of your customers can access and easily navigate your site, reach out to our experts. We’re standing by to help build your online presence. Learn more at GreyPartners.com