ADA Compliance

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides for people with disabilities to have equal access to public places. Most of us are familiar with it in buildings: wheelchair ramps, elevator buttons in braille, and other instances. But it also plays a prominent role in access to websites. Due to increased awareness of this issue, it’s something your business may need to address.

What is an ADA-compliant website?

In the strictest sense, it is a website that meets the standards set by section 508 of the government code on accessibility. In broad terms, you can break ADA compliance into three categories, as shown here. (NOTE: The percentages are only for general comparison purposes, and in no way “exact.”)

1. Our Standard Procedure | 90%

   All text is either “readable” by the browser, or accompanied by actual text in the description. Any photos or other graphic items should include a description in the code. Ideally all videos would offer a transcription, although a brief overview may suffice. PDFs: depending on how they’re created, they could be graphic or text. To conform to ADA requirements, they need to be text.

   Besides those criteria, many of the rest involve making sites logical, easy to navigate, and in general, user-friendly. All of these items are simply part of good web design, which we have been practicing for years.

2. Adding Third Party Software | 95%

   In addition to the above mentioned items, we can also install a platform called Accessibe, which includes a number of user-controlled tools to make the site more accessible. There is a nominal cost for us to implement it, and a roughly $500/year subscription.

3. Complete ADA Compliance | 100%

   This involves an extremely rigorous analysis, review, and coding process. We don’t do it, but can refer you to a certified ADA testing compliance agency that does. Cost will run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and it must be renewed on a regular basis.