Table of Contents
- 1
- 1.1 What is ADA compliance and why is it important?
- 1.2 How can you make your website more accessible for all users?
- 1.3 What are some tools and resources that can help you with compliance?
- 1.4 How to test your website for accessibility
- 1.5 Tips for making your website more user-friendly
- 1.6 Closing thoughts
Making your website ADA accessible is important for your customers and your business. It is the right thing to do, but it can also help you avoid costly lawsuits. There are tools such as accessiBe and others that can help ensure compliance. This article will discuss some tips for compliance and ways to make your website more user-friendly for everyone.
What is ADA compliance and why is it important?
ADA compliance refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a set of laws that protect individuals with disabilities from discrimination. This includes ensuring that all website visitors have access to the same information and functionality. Making your site accessible helps you avoid lawsuits and ensures that everyone can use your site.
How can you make your website more accessible for all users?
There are a few ways you can make your website more accessible:
Use clear and concise language
Using clear and concise language can help make your site more accessible for everyone. This includes using easy-to-read font sizes and avoiding jargon.
Add alt text to images
Adding alternative text (alt-text) to images helps those with visual impairments understand what is on the page. Another benefit of adding alt text is that it can help improve your site’s SEO.
Some users may not be able to use a mouse, so it’s important to make sure your site can be navigated using a keyboard. This includes adding tabindexes to elements and using clear and concise label names.
Use color contrast wisely
Color can help convey information, but it’s important to use color contrast wisely. This means using a dark font on a light background or vice versa.
Use descriptive links
Using descriptive links helps those using screen readers know where they are going when they click a link. These links also help with SEO.
What are some tools and resources that can help you with compliance?
There are a few tools that can help you with ADA compliance:
• Google’s Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool: This tool will analyze your website and give you a report of any accessibility issues. It can be helpful to run your site through this tool periodically to check for any new issues.
• WAVE Web Accessibility Tool: This tool allows you to test individual pages on your website for accessibility issues. For instance, you can test a page to see if it has alt text for all images.
• WebAIM’s Accessibility Checklist: This checklist lists things to consider when making your website accessible. For example, it includes items such as “provide text alternatives for non-text content” and “ensure the user can control the timing of content changes.”
How to test your website for accessibility
Once you have made changes to your website, it’s important to test it to ensure that everything is working properly. You can use the tools mentioned above to test your site. You can also ask someone with a disability to test your site and give you feedback.
Tips for making your website more user-friendly
In addition to making sure your website is accessible, there are also a few things you can do to make it more user-friendly:
• Use easy to read fonts
• Increase font size
• Use high contrast colors
• Add spacing between elements
Closing thoughts
Making your website accessible is important for both your customers and your business. There are a few tools that can help you with compliance. Additionally, you can do a few things to make your website more user-friendly. By following these tips, you can ensure that everyone can use your website.