If you have a website, you've probably heard the terms website accessibility and ADA compliance.
- Accessibility is a measure of how usable something is, specifically as it pertains to people with one or more disabilities.
- Website accessibility is a measure of how accessible (or usable) a website is.
- ADA compliance addresses whether "public accommodations" (like stores and websites) are fully accessible to people with disabilities, as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The ADA was passed into law in 1990 (predating the internet as we know it today) and as such it did not explicitly address websites. , but rather public accommodations, which originally meant physical places. U.S. courts have since ruled in some cases that public websites constitute public accommodations and so are required to provide full and equal access to everyone, including people with disabilities.
We believe that all people should have full and equal opportunity to participate in every aspect of society and commerce, regardless of ability.
At Webtricity, we strive to keep up with evolving technology and how it relates to website accessibility. When a flashy new website feature gains popularity, we always evaluate it's accessibility prior to offering it to Webtricity users.
At present (2023), the web accessibility landscape is unfortunately shadowed by legal uncertainty, as there is no official standard for ADA compliance as it relates to websites. Federal courts have referenced the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as a means of measuring compliance, and as a result we work off of these guidelines.
Challenging Website Interaction
There are different types of disabilities that may affect a user's ability to gather information on your website, such as:
- visual impairments (blindness, color-blindness, blurred vision)
- hearing impairments (deafness or hearing loss)
- motor impairments (difficulty using a mouse or trackpad)
Examples of common challenges that can be present on a website:
- A green circle indicating success and a red circle indicating failure are indistinguishable by someone who is red/green colorblind (affecting 8% of global population)
- A small button that is too close to other clickable elements on the page is difficult to click by someone with a fine motor impairment.
Accessibility Guidelines
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are written for website creators as well as producers of assistive technology (hardware & software components that make it easier for people with disabilities to interact with websites).
These guidelines ensure websites, web browsers, and assistive technologies all use a common set of definitions to ensure they all work together.
If a website adheres to the guidelines, then web browsers and screen readers can interact with the content to present it to their users.
Role of a Website Owner
Just as you need to make public physical spaces (like your office) accessible to people who use wheelchairs, you should also ensure your website is accessible to people with disabilities.
This means mitigating a wide range of potential accessibility problems from being present on your website. This is done by ensuring it meets WCAG guidelines.
A few items that should be on any website accessibility checklist:
- Add "alternative text" to all images so they can be read by screen-readers.
- Ensure all videos displayed on your website have closed captioning
- Verify your website can be navigated using only a keyboard (no mouse).
- Make sure clickable elements have adequate spacing
- Text colors have enough contrast compared to background colors
Your website should meet or exceed the guidelines in the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines document. The WCAG's Quick Reference document is a great resource to learn more about accessibility.
Evaluating Your Website
Google Lighthouse, which is built into Google Chrome, has two distinct advantages.
- It's open source, meaning anyone can contribute improvements to it
- It's not produced by a company that is trying to sell you something accessibility-related, removing a common bias.
All Webtricity templates earn a Lighthouse Accessibility score of 100 "out of the box." That means that the default colors have adequate contrast, alt tags are present on all images, the site can be navigated using only the keyboard, among other important accessibility concerns.
Any website that we create as part of our Design + Build service also earns a score of 100 before being delivered to the customer.
#1 Priority
The most important thing you can do on a basic human level is to make yourself available to the people who want to interact with you, with the understanding that some people may need different accommodations. We all deserve an equally-safe, equally-accessible place to interact with society and live our lives.