You may have heard the term “ADA compliance” floating around. If you haven’t, it’s a good thing you are giving this a read! ADA compliance is super important for both legal reasons and to increase your market share. Wouldn’t you love to help your clients by providing them with a more accessible site? Of course, you would!
Below is more information about the ADA, along with how we can help to ensure your website is compliant and accessible.
What Is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)?
In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed. When it was initially passed, it covered the installation of ramps, disability-friendly bathrooms, and other accessibility requirements for businesses. It also covered the addition of disability-friendly office equipment, chairs, desks, and more to workspaces.
Most of what was covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act involved physical modifications. With the internet becoming more of a necessity, though, ADA compliance has had to evolve to keep up with the times.
A few years back, the ADA was amended to increase the scope of what is covered by the law. This included the addition of online ADA compliance. Since the update in the law, ADA lawsuits have increased significantly—with a large portion referencing web accessibility.
It is extremely important—not only ethically but also legally—to ensure your website is ADA-compliant. If not, it opens you up to legal repercussions.
How WRIS Helped Our Client
WRIS recently had the opportunity to work with a client that needed web accessibility services and required assistance following the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). This required an update to the website that included screen-reader and keyboard navigation optimization.
Our update to the client’s interface included:
- Font handling
- Animation adjustments
- Color handling
- Audio muting
- Content highlighting
- Addition of an on-demand dictionary
- And more
WRIS ensured the website wasn’t just engaging but accommodated a wide range of disabilities—making it easier for customers to navigate the website and access the content.
Partnering with UserWay
In 2023 WRIS partnered with UserWay to bring an easy to use ADA & WCAG compliance widget to our customers. Their widget appears anywhere on your site that you prefer and allows your website users to control what level of assistance they need. Check out the bottom left corner of the WRIS website to test it yourself!
Along with this amazing widget for your users it also automatically fixes any compliance issues your website has while providing you with a report of any remaining fixes that need to be manually applied. In addition, it provides a list of any PDF’s or files you may have that are non-compliant and options for fixing them.
Our partnership allows us to set up your account, install the widget code within your website, and provide access to the widget dashboard so you may see your compliance score.
Check out the bottom left corner of our website to test out what your website users could do.
We’re Here to Help with Your ADA Compliance!
With ADA-related lawsuits on the rise, it’s important to ensure your website is compliant. You also want to make sure everyone is able to take advantage of your amazing products or services.
WRIS will perform an audit of your website to better understand where improvements can be made for better web accessibility. From there, we will use specialized tools to improve the accessibility of your website so all of your customers can properly navigate, read, and shop. It’s a win-win!
For more information about ADA compliance and web accessibility, reach out today. We’d be happy to discuss web compliance and accessibility with you, as well as how WRIS can improve your web accessibility and increase the number of customers that have access to your products or services.