The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in places of public accommodation, and websites are increasingly interpreted in legal cases as places of public accommodation.
Is your website compliant?
Approximately, 13.2 million people in the United States have one of the following disabilities that could impact their ability to use your website successfully:
- Visual – Blindness, low vision, color-blindness
- Hearing – Deafness and hard-of-hearing
- Motor – Inability to use a mouse, slow response time, limited fine motor control
- Cognitive – Learning disabilities, distractibility, inability to remember or focus on large amounts of information
An inaccessible website could result in:
- Loss of Business: Persons with a disability are more likely to leave a website that is not accessible, potentially costing you business.
- Negative Impression: Disabled users are more likely to avoid a business or organization with a non-accessible website, as well as convince others not to use it, leading to a negative public impression of your business.
- Costly Lawsuits: Thousands of lawsuits have been filed in the United States alone. Service based businesses – like restaurants, retail food brands, and hotels,often top the list.
Besides costing you a large fine, the possibility of litigation, plus the cost of remediating the problem with a revised, or brand new website – it’s not a wise risk to take.
Free Resources
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed into law in 1990, guidelines do not cover the internet. The ADA refers to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0 and 2.1) as the acceptable accessibility standards for the internet. Below are some resources that use these guidelines in testing for accessbility.
- Color Contrast: Check here to see if the colors on your website offer enough contrast for the visually impaired.
- Accessible Color Palette Builder: See what colors meet the Section 508 standards
- Test Your Site: Check here to see what this free report shows about your site. It scans your website and takes a page-by-page inventory of all of your content
- Install A Helpful Tool: Visualize what screen readers for the visually impaired can view and install a free tool on your website that shows errors and how to fix them.
- Official Government Resource List: An extensive list of tools available published by the US government to help web developers.