ADA website compliance refers to the adherence of a website to the standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This act, primarily known for prohibiting discrimination based on disability in various public life areas, also extends to digital spaces like websites, especially those of public entities or businesses.
The goal of ADA website compliance is to ensure that websites are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. This involves designing and developing websites in a way that people with a range of disabilities – such as visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities – can effectively use them.
Key aspects of ADA website compliance typically include:
Ensuring that the website’s content is accessible via screen readers, which are used by visually impaired individuals.
Making sure that users can navigate the website using a keyboard, which is essential for people who cannot use a mouse.
Having a predictable and easy-to-understand website layout helps users with cognitive impairments.
Providing text alternatives (like alt text) for non-text content (images, videos) allows visually impaired users to understand the content.
Offering these for audio and video content ensures that users who are deaf or hard of hearing can access the information.
Enabling users to adjust text size and color contrast helps those with visual impairments.
Making sure that errors are clearly identified and instructions are provided for form fields assists users with cognitive disabilities.
Compliance is often aligned with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which provide a set of recommendations for making web content more accessible. While the ADA doesn’t explicitly mention websites, several legal cases and the Department of Justice’s interpretations have extended its scope to include digital accessibility. Non-compliance not only limits accessibility for disabled users but can also result in legal consequences for the website owners.
ADA website compliance does not provide additional value for SEO directly. However many of the practices involved in achieving this compliance also align with good SEO principles:
While ADA compliance is aimed at making websites accessible to people with disabilities, its principles overlap significantly with SEO best practices. By improving website accessibility, you can also enhance your site’s SEO, potentially leading to better search rankings and a broader audience reach.