Does your website need to be accessible for people with disabilities? Since December of 2008, the answer has been a “yes.” But in late 2019, the Supreme Court made a move to change that “yes” to a “YES!” (See what I did there?)
ICYMI: Several years ago, a blind man wanted to order Domino’s Pizza through the company’s website. But he couldn’t, because their website wasn’t compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). He sued them and won. When Domino’s appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, the justices chose not to hear the case of Domino’s Pizza vs. Robles, letting the lower court’s decision stand. Their refusal set a clear precedent: blind individuals can successfully sue retailers if their websites are not accessible.
Curious what this means for you and your website? If you sell goods or services online, you could be sued for not making your website ADA-compliant.
Getting sued obviously means a loss of revenue. But the importance of following ADA guidelines is more significant than that. As my colleague Ilana Davis has blogged, “When you ignore accessibility, you are ignoring revenue!” And profitability aside, it just makes sense to be inclusive of everyone in your target audience, regardless of their visual abilities.
In this guide on website ADA accessibility, we’ll review what you need to know to ensure your site is meeting all guidelines and best practices.
Get to know the web accessibility guidelines
The first step to an ADA-compliant website is to get to know the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. We’ve linked to the full text of the guidelines, which are long and detailed because they are a technical standard.
For a comprehensive, yet easier-to-understand read, consider reviewing the Examples of Web Accessibility put together by the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3. W3 is an international community of members, staff, and the public that develop web standards.
W3 defines three levels of conformance:
- Level A
- Level AA
- Level AAA
Now, obviously there’s a lot of specifics to learn about WCAG 2.1 compliance and W3’s examples, but it basically boils down to taking the right technical steps to do as best of a job as you possibly can to ensure your website is accessible to all.
At Marketing Queen, we care a lot about accessibility and always discuss it on a case-by-case basis with our clients. That being said, I do sincerely encourage you to learn more about the WCAG 2.1 standards and how they influence your website design and accessibility.
How to improve your website ADA compliance
There are many ways to improve your accessibility efforts. Here are some best practices that will help you be more compliant.
1. Use a WordPress theme that has accessibility baked in
Here at Marketing Queen, we love and use the Elementor Hello Theme (and a few other major themes that use the Elementor plugin) for the websites we’re developing right now! The Elementor Hello theme has a lot of built-in functionality that specifically makes websites more usable for visitors with visual impairments. Elementor has very streamlined code for their widgets (and they are always improving them).
And, Elementor has actually released its own All-in-One Accessibility Tool. There is a scoring system so you can see how well you are performing. Additionally, there are suggested changes and recommendations based on the score you receive. You can learn more about it on their blog posts (like this one about the scoring system) and their sales page here.
All of my projects are built using Elementor and Wordpress, so if accessibility is a concern in your website redesign, know that the foundations of your future site are based in quality code that considers accessibility.
2. Include an Accessibility Statement on your website
In addition to having a Privacy Policy and Terms of Use on your website, you want to have an Accessibility Statement on your site too. It shows your site visitors three very important things:
- You acknowledge the need for accessible content.
- You are committed to making sure your content stays accessible to your audience.
- You are open to hearing about any struggles they may be encountering while using your site.
So what should you write for your Accessibility Statement? Once again, W3C is here to help! They provide a statement generator on their website that allows you to generate both a minimal and a complete statement.
For examples, check out your own favorite websites’ footer links, like Anthropologie’s accessibility statement page, and of course, you can check out the Marketing Queen accessibility statement.
3. Implement these design considerations on every page
While you can read all the gritty details that go into each level of WCAG 2.1 compliance, it’s important to know and abide by the ones that affect the bigger picture. Consider these the lowest-hanging fruit, if you will.
The quickest (and often, easiest) accessibility improvements you can make
- Adding transcripts to your videos (or even podcast show notes)
- Brand color choices for text and backgrounds (see my own cheat sheet for my brand below)
- Brand Fonts that are clear and legible (read: probably not many script fonts)
- Font sizing and hierarchy considerations
- Applying alternative text for images
- Adding ARIA-labels to your buttons (especially when they open a new browser window)
The final word on website accessibility
With all of these tools available, it’s easier than you might think to make your website accessible for website visitors of all abilities.
To recap, here’s an overarching summary of the top three things to do when it comes to being inclusive and more accessible to more and more people (aka potential customers):
- Use website tools that offer built-in accessibility standards
- Include and commit to accessibility best practices with an Accessibility Statement on your website
- Make design choices that follow website accessibility best practices
Now that you have this information and are committed to an accessible and compliant website, consider consulting with your attorney to ensure your website is compliant. While I can introduce these guidelines to you and do my best to ensure compliance efforts in your website design project, I’m still a practitioner learning and improving my own knowledge of website accessibility and its rapidly changing guidelines. Nothing here should be considered legal advice, and your attorney can best guide you through making the correct decisions for your website and business.
Ready to start the process of redesigning your website with accessibility best practices in place? Let’s connect to talk about what it would be like to work together.
