What is ADA Compliance?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is an "equal opportunity" civil rights law for people with disabilities. The ADA provides guidelines for government and businesses that describe how to comply with the ADA rules.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) background

In 1990, The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. The purpose was to ensure that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else to participate in mainstream activities for employment, to purchase goods and services and to participate in government programs and services.

The ADA guidelines are often associated with the physical accommodations that businesses are required to provide such as Wheelchair Accessibility and the use of Braille for visually impaired customers. The ADA guidelines also extend to the business website to ensure the web content is also accessible to all users.

Does my website need to be ADA Compliant?

The ADA requires certain businesses to make certain accommodations for people with disabilities. The ADA specifies that website content should be accessible to sight or hearing-impaired users including users who must navigate by voice, or screen readers or via other technologies.

All Federal, State and Local Government websites are required to meet the Section 508 level of ADA Compliance.

The rules that apply to private businesses are not as clear cut. According to the ADA Guidelines, businesses that fall under ADA Title 1 or Title III are required to provide “reasonable accessibility” on their website to people with disabilities. All businesses that fall under the “public accommodation” category are required to comply. If your business is commercial in nature meaning it sells goods or services, then it would be considered to fit into the “public accommodation” category.

Reasons to be ADA Compliant

There are economic, moral and legal reasons why you should ensure people with disabilities can access your website.

There is a huge market of potential customers that need access to products and services just like everyone else. Offering accessibility is good for your brand and the implementation of the ADA compliant methods is also good for Search Engine Optimization to give your website better search engine visibility.

One in five US Adults have some form of disability issue involving mobility, cognition, hearing or vision. The market for Americans with disabilities is estimated to be $200 billion. World-wide 1.5 billion people have some form of disability that make it difficult to navigate non-compliant websites. 70% of these users will click away from non-compliant sites and 80% would spend more if websites were more accessible. Ensuring your website is compliant will open your business to potential clients who will appreciate your efforts to include them.

Web Accessibility lawsuits are drastically increasing. It is more important now than ever to avoid Accessibility Legal Issues. Making and keeping your website accessible is a way to reduce the risk of receiving a demand letter from an attorney. Having an ADA Compliant website is a form of insurance to protect your business from predatory lawyers who make a living off claims of disability discrimination. Once you receive a demand letter from an attorney, you will need to hire an attorney to defend your business. Your legal bills will quickly cost you more than if you had ensured your website is ADA Compliant.

Making a good faith effort to provide reasonable accessibility for users with disabilities you can get ahead of the regulations by developing a compliant website to avoid lawsuits and in doing so, you open your website to a bigger audience, improved search engine ranking and more sales.

What are the steps to ensure my website is ADA Compliant?

The steps to achieving ADA Compliance for your website are:

Website Audit – find out what issues need to be corrected
Determine your business Compliance Level – find out what level of compliance is needed for your business
Remediate the issues to ensure compliance
Implement a method to keep your website in compliance

Contact Us to find out more about ADA website compliance and how you can protect your business.