You may have heard the term “ADA compliant” before in a discussion about websites, or you may have seen an article about it online. But what is ADA compliance and how does its standards affect you and your website?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
This act was finalized and signed into law by President George H. Bush on July 26th, 1990 with little opposition. The Americans with Disabilities Act was the first proper recognition of the need for change to achieve equality for people with disabilities. The ADA ensures that the 54 million + Americans with disabilities of all types would have equal opportunity in everyday life with requirements ranging from access to public transportation and privately owned establishments to website accessibility for the impaired.
Why does my website need to be ADA compliant?
The increase in mobile devices with internet access has drastically changed the way in which companies conduct business. With roughly 50% of websites being accessed on mobile devices it’s important that your website now not only be responsive, but also ADA compliant for impaired users to access easily from any device.
The standards for website compatibility upheld by the ADA are constantly changing to better accommodate impaired users, but the basic rules of website compliance stay the same.
There are free tools online which can check for basic errors and warnings on each page of your website, and there are also more in-depth services which include tools for SEO. While total compliance is often difficult to achieve while maintaining a modern and attractive design it’s not impossible, and most compliance issues come from the website’s code structure to begin with. If you start with a strong foundation, it’s much easier to ensure that your website will be accessible to users of a abilities and disabilities.
How can I check my website for ADA compliance?
Anyone can run a quick report on their website for free using the WebAIM checker (one of many online tools for checking ADA compliance).
Most likely there will be 3-12 errors on your website that can easily be fixed. More than likely the errors have to do with color contrast, missing alt tags, heading nesting and aria labelling.
If you have questions about your website and want to learn how to improve it’s ADA compliance you can contact our Web Team at Nimble CMS
Nimble CMS is NTS’s in-house-built Content Management System. Websites built on Nimble 2.0’s platform are built with a strong foundation of ADA compliance with ADA compliant design in mind as well.
If you’d like to learn more about Nimble CMS and how it can improve your accessibility, contact us today!