The ADA guidelines have been put in place to make the world, and the web, more accessible to people suffering from disabilities. Recent accessibility cases, like the Domino’s case for instance, shed light on the importance of accessibility in web design. But, while it’s important to stay compliant so you can avoid lawsuits, there are many benefits to being more accessible. accessiBe has an informative guide on why businesses need to pay attention to accessibility. Let’s take a closer look at what it had to say.
Table of Contents
Legal Aspect
Physical accessibility was mandated by law in 1990 and it now extends to digital property as well. While not all businesses are mandated by law to abide by the accessibility guidelines, any business that has a website that is tied to a physical location has to.
Not only that, but not being accessible can expose you to lawsuits even if you’re not obligated in certain cases. So, you should at least strive to reach a minimal level of compliance if you don’t want to get in trouble.
If you feel like you may be lacking the technical skills to make your site accessible, don’t worry. Tools like accessiBe can not only fix existing issues with your site, but do it in real-time using artificial intelligence. All you need is one simple line of code to be inserted. This will allow you to tackle many accessibility issues on your site and continue to improve.
Reputation
You also don’t want to be seen as insensitive to the plight of disabled people. If we go back to the Domino’s lawsuit, not only did it cost them millions of dollars in compensation, but they’re now associated with not providing basic services to a blind person. If some people were on the fence about the brand, this could be enough for them to completely write them off now.
You don’t want this to happen to you, especially if you genuinely care about the disabled. Not only that, but millennials and GenZers are the most sensitive to these types of issues, and they happen to be the two biggest consumer segments at the moment, so you don’t want to get on their bad side. The good news is that taking the extra step to make your site accessible will also be noticed.
Improve Your User Experience
But one thing that people often overlook about accessibility is that it makes websites better for everyone. One of the measures of accessibility is making sure that people can reach any part of your site through a keyboard only. This eventually leads to simpler and more intuitive navigation for all.
Another thing that can improve user experience is the use of alt-text. Slow loading pages can be infuriating, and being able to see what an image is about allows people to scroll down faster and get right to the information they need. Things like adjusting contrast ratios can also help reduce eye strain and increase time spent on pages.
These are all reasons why you should make accessibility a priority for your businesses starting today. Take all the steps necessary and make sure that you use all the resources available to you.