ADA Compliant Website Guidelines: What Every Business Should Know

Adhering to ADA compliant website guidelines

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was introduced in 1990 to prevent any type of inequity against individuals with disabilities. The act obligates the businesses and NGOs to create websites that can be accessed by differently-abled citizens. Under this act, the web designers and web developers are instructed to incorporate such features while website development that complies with the ADA accessibility guidelines for websites.

In order to avoid potential lawsuits, we recommend businesses to check their websites to ensure they are available for people with special needs.

According to Title III of the ADA, it is mandatory that all “places of public accommodation” are required by law to remove any “access barriers” that would inhibit a person with disabilities from accessing the business’ goods or services.

If you are looking for a solid reason to make your website ADA compliant, we give you five. Read now:
 

According to the United States Census Bureau, about 50 million Americans have some type of disability. This number will continue to increase and expected to double to 98 million by 2060. It includes people, who might be interested in your product or services. But once they visit your website, they won’t be able to navigate easily to make a purchase or communicate with you. Therefore, they may go to your competitors. It is important for businesses that have demo video or images on their website to provide captions or alternate text.
 

If your portal meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, it will possibly please clients/users, search engines, and screen readers alike, ultimately improving your SEO efforts. Hence, meta tagging, alternative image text, and video transcripts should be strictly taken into consideration.
 

Making your website easier to understand, while in sync with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) will make it simple for both disabled and normal to find what they are looking for. This will build your reputation and increase your user base. A loyal user base means lots of leads and business.
 

An ADA compliant website can not only increase your target audience base but also enhance your brand reputation. Because those customers (disabled) might have accessed a few other websites that were not ADA compliant; disappointed every time that they are not able to get what they want, they landed on your ADA compliant website. Remember, a happy customer can build a list of several loyal customers for your business. Hence, it is beneficial to go for an ADA compliant website.  
 

As mentioned above Title III of the ADA, a business will be sued if it obstructs a person with a disability from accessing the business’ goods or services. Businesses including Fordham University, Foot Locker, Brooks Brothers, and even Kylie Jenner have been sued for not having an ADA compliance website. Thus, if you want to avoid the penalties, it’s best to make the necessary changes to your website immediately by following the ADA Compliant Website Guidelines.
 
This article originally appeared here.

With more than 6 years of experience, William B. Young works as a Content Writer at Infojini Consulting writing about technological developments and evolution, staffing trends and updates. Visit www.infojiniconsulting.com Follow @infojini_inc