4 Tips to Creating an ADA Compliant Website

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a legislation that was enacted in the US back in the year 2010 to protect the interests of people with special needs. The act requires all websites to be fully accessible by the disabled. If your website is not yet compliant with this act, it’s regarded as discrimination towards people that live with disabilities. This is because there are many internet users that rely on voice scanners and text readers when buying stuff or communicating with others. Below are tips that can help you develop an ADA compliant website stress free.

ADA compliance is a complicated affair that should be addressed from the moment a website is being coded from scratch. It’s therefore recommended that you first engage with a website design company when your portal is still under construction. This will ensure that you don’t skip vital steps of compliance. Remember, if you progress with web design without involving a coding engineer, you might have to start all over again after you have done all the designing. The problem with most website developers is that they don’t have even a slight idea of what ADA is. In fact, before you hire a website developer, you should interrogate them just to find out whether they are familiar with the act and how they go about it to ensure that your portal is not flagged down for being non compliant.

If your website is already up and running, it’s advisable you first audit it before attempting to make any changes. Just so you may know, website auditing comes at a cost. On the other hand, skipping the auditing phase is like prescribing drugs to a patient without first carrying out lab tests to diagnose the underlying ailment. Auditing is done by automated tools that scan your website and generate a compliance report.

Since there is no universal cost of auditing, the price that you pay is determined by the platform that your website runs on. By auditing, you will be able to tell exactly what needs to be changed. In fact, some websites need minimal changes because they are partially compliant in some areas. When you run an audit, you can use the results you get to budget for the compliance.

After thoroughly examining your website, it’s time to hit the ground running. In fact, an audit would be a waste of time and resources if you are not committed to complying with ADA. You should actually start restructuring to include the things that will make the website to be more user friendly. When getting started, you should start with the simplest tasks and finish with those that require more time. For a start, all the pictures should have a text caption that tells users what the image relates to. You should also switch to colors that are easy to distinguish so that users can navigate through the website without any difficulty.

ADA compliance is a continuous process. You can’t therefore do it once and for all. This is because technology is dynamic. You should therefore continue updating yourself on emerging trends that revolve around this compliance. After all is said and done, compliance gives you an edge in the marketplace because you will be able to accommodate the needs of all customers.