Today there are over 1 billion people in the entire world who suffer from various disabilities. These include hearing, sight, and motor disabilities. However, the absence of assistive technologies and non-adapted communication mediums prevent them from accessing online content.
The ADA or Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant website guarantees equal opportunities to access online content to visitors with various disabilities. As such, today, you can avail of ADA compliance solutions for websites that require you just to insert a single line of JavaScript code. The professional web engineers of the solution analyze a business website and make necessary adjustments as per the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG 2.1. And they do so without altering the website code.
What Is the Goal of the ADA Act and Guidelines of Web Content Accessibility?
According to the World Health Organization report, almost 15 percent of the population live with disabilities that affect their routine activities. These include web surfing and online shopping. So to address this need for accessibility of the web, the W3C or the World Wide Web Consortium made the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It’s a technical standard whose objective is to outline ADA accessibility. It aims to guide web development professionals on making websites ADA compliant. These guidelines have been adopted by various governments globally. And they are now a component of various legislation, like Section 508, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and EN 301549.
WCAG 2.1 was introduced in 2017 to address technological innovations and changes in the web. It’s developed on the prior WCAG versions and endeavors to make content online more accessible to people with a broad range of disabilities, like:
- Blindness
- Deafness
- Photosensitivity
- Low vision
- Hearing loss
- Learning disabilities
- Limited movement
- Cognitive limitations
- Speech disabilities
Why Does Your Website Need to Be ADA Compliant?
Today ADA compliance has become a necessity. Countries like the US, UK, and Canada need WCAG compliance for every website. Meanwhile, in the United States, the tax credit of IRS or the Internal Revenue Service Code provided close to $5000 ADA tax incentives for site accessibility. It was also to stimulate small and medium scale businesses to participate in imparting equal access to online content. But the tax credit is only a single reason to create ADA compliant website. You will be surprised to find that you can get more business if your site is ADA compliant. And ignoring it will only put your company at risk of getting an ADA website compliance lawsuit. It can disrupt your financial abilities and marketability. So, companies that haven’t yet prioritized ADA compliance should immediately do the following:
- Get their site up to speed as per the WCAG 2.1 parameter.
- Enforce compulsory website updates to be aligned with web compliance.
- Create an accessibility rule on their site.
- Check that the web developers go through ADA assistance and training in website accessibility.
Today, there are ADA compliance solutions for websites of every size, from small-size to mid-size and large-sized ones. They can get auto AI-powered access remediation plans according to their budget. So, small-sized websites can get a silver auto-remediation plan of up to 100 pages at $399 a year. For mid-sized websites, a gold remediation plan of up to 1000 pages can be availed for $790 a year. Large-sized websites can go in for a platinum auto-remediation plan of up to 10,000 pages for $1790 a year. So, no matter what size your website has, you can make it ADA compliant effectively. It paves the way for business sustainability and growth.