A guide to understanding the fundamentals of website accessibility and the ADA and WCAG 2.1 compliance solutions we offer.
Accessibility should be a priority
Web accessibility is best-practice
We’ll handle the process of making your WordPress website ADA compliant, so your visitors can browse with ease.
Information and user interface (UI) design are displayed to users in ways they can understand.
Navigation and functionality can be carried out via various methods, from keyboard to screen readers.
Content and interactions are presented in a way that maximizes predictability and are easily interpreted.
ADA FAQs
What is web accessibility?
Web accessibility involves following best-practices of website access, coding, display, and interaction — to ensure there are no barriers for those with disabilities. This would ideally allow all users to have equal access to both the information and functionality.
This often requires adding additional descriptive tags to existing code, improving navigation structure, ensuring colors and text are displayed in a very legible manner, etc. — so that any valuable information is available and easily accessible to all who wish to obtain it.
What is ADA compliance?
ADA is the American with Disabilities Act and is a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. Its goal is to provide clear and comprehensive standards and regulations throughout all facets of life, including public accommodations and telecommunications.
ADA compliance covers a broad range of areas, but we’re focusing on websites here. The accessibility standards and regulations set forth by ADA are not very specific when it comes to websites. This is where the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) come into play.
The WCAG provides guidelines/documents for web accessibility, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) — which is the main international standards organization for the Internet. Thus, the WCAG is used until the Department of Justice properly defines regulations specifically addressing the accessibility of websites.
For websites, ADA Compliance is essentially the following of specific techniques that WCAG provides guidance on.
Should my website be ADA compliant?
Honestly — we’re not certain. Since we’re not lawyers, nor did we make the “rules”, we can’t accurately answer that. When it comes to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), there really aren’t any specific technical requirements for websites.
However, this doesn’t mean you should ignore ADA or web accessibility. What we do know, is that all websites should be given a good-faith-effort of becoming easily accessible. This should be the case for any user who may wish to browse your website, regardless of their disability of type of impairment. They deserve it. Making your website accessible benefits an array of individuals and businesses.
You can learn more at this W3C Intro to Web Accessibility page.
Basically, there are standards which apply to US federal agencies, and State or Local Government websites (not business/personal websites). While some disability discrimination laws do mention websites, they don’t specify the technical standards required to comply with the law. Regardless of ADA’s lack of stating websites must be fully accessible, the Department of Justice seems to rule on the side of “they should be”.
Can my website be certified as compliant?
There is no official certification for ADA compliance.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) contains guidelines/documents for web accessibility, which are published by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) via their Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
Neither the government, the guidelines, the organization, nor the initiative offer any official certification.
Third-party tools are available that test the conformance level of the outlined WCAG standards. Testing combined with human evaluation help determine if a website is “compliant”.
Based on the results, there are third-party companies that are willing to “certify” the website as being compliant.
What's the difference between Conformance LevelA and AA?
In simple terms, WCAG 2 Conformance Level A is less strict than Level AA — and is therefore more “easily” obtainable and maintainable.
- Level A conformance means all WCAG 2 Level A requirements (success criteria) have been satisfied.
- Level AA conformance satisifed all the WCAG 2 Level A requirements, in addition to the Level AA requirements.
You can read more information about understanding conformance requirements, or view the quick reference guide to WCAG 2 requirements.
Our ADA website solutions
We offer the following WordPress accessibility services:
Manual compliance audit
- Sequential heading tags — FreshySites to ensure heading tags to be in sequential order.
- Basic contrast audit — Ensure proper contrast levels of major site design elements.
Implementation of third-party ADA infrastructure
- Image ALT tags implemented
- Skip navigation option enabled
- Keyboard navigation optimization
- screen reader optimization
- ARIA (name attributes) added and optimized
- Additional interface capabilities — Font handling, color handling, contrast handling, animation handling, content highlighting, audio muting, content deciphering via Wikipedia and Wiktionary
Ongoing ADA support and compliance
- Ongoing scans and compliance – Includes daily scans and analysis of the site to confirm any new content is adjusted and accessibility statement.
- Image ALT tags implemented
- Skip navigation option enabled
- Keyboard navigation optimization
- screen reader optimization
- ARIA (name attributes) added and optimized
- Additional interface capabilities — Font handling, color handling, contrast handling, animation handling, content highlighting, audio muting, content deciphering via Wikipedia and Wiktionary
The need could soon become a requirement
New to web accessibility compliance?
Becoming ADA compliant can be a lot of work! We start with the basics, and go beyond.