by Andrea Hutcherson, senior developer


ADA Compliance
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) generally requires that qualified individuals with disabilities have equal access to programs, services, or activities. Having a modern website that is compliant with such laws and best practices is now expected. What does that mean and how do we assist you with creating an ADA compliant website? Read more below.

ADA compliance for websites means making the website experience accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities such as blindness, color-blindness, deafness, etc. We build websites that are as compliant as possible using the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 set out by the W3C international standards organization. Our design / development process ensures that all sections of the site have proper headings and landmark labels to be read by screen-readers, and that the site uses appropriate, friendly colors that have the proper contrast ratio. While ADA compliance has many components, some basics include:

  • Having the proper color saturation ratio for a button – For example, if someone is colorblind and unable to see red, a solid red button that has the proper color saturation / ratio can still be visible to them.
  • Having alternate text for images – This text should be descriptive of the image so someone using a screen reader can still understand what the image is about.
  • Having proper landmark roles on the page – If someone is blind and is utilizing a screen reader, they rely solely on quality content and a well-organized navigation structure. The screen reader runs down the page and notes any headings, elements, or landmarks on the page in a specific order. If a site has no landmark roles set, the screen reader has a much harder time reading back the site content in a logical order that will make sense to the user.
  • Having captions – Specific for videos or sound files, having a transcript below a sound file or captions in a video allow hearing-impaired users to fully engage.

Here is a link about Domino’s Pizza and a situation before the United States Supreme Court as it relates to ADA website compliance and the reason your site needs to be setup properly.

Back