Does your company’s website comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)? If your answer is no, or you have no idea, you might be in danger of lawsuits that can cost you time, money and your reputation. More importantly, you might be unwittingly preventing people with disabilities from accessing your website.
We’ve designed and developed countless websites for a plethora of businesses across the globe, and I’ve never met a business owner yet who’s okay with bogging down potential customers with unnecessary barriers. Yet companies that neglect to ensure that their websites adhere to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), by following the WCAG, are in effect placing roadblocks in front of a large swath of the population. This article is intended to help you understand the WCAG, why they matter and how to comply in a way that not only can protect your business but also make the world a better place for people with disabilities.
What are the ADA and WCAG?
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is a landmark piece of legislation signed into law in 1990 that ensures that those with disabilities “have the same opportunities as everyone else to participate in the mainstream of American life,” including purchasing goods and services. In practice, the law requires businesses to make necessary adjustments to their physical stores to allow access for people with special needs. This includes providing ramps for wheelchairs, modified elevators and other similar accommodations.
Fast-forward nearly 30 years, and the ADA has been interpreted to apply to organizations’ websites as well. However, as the Los Angeles Times points out, “no formal government standards exist for private businesses to follow to ensure their websites comply with the ADA.” The World Wide Web Consortium created the WCAG to help make websites accessible to those with disabilities. For example, individuals with visual impairments often cannot read web content without the aid of a screen reader, which scans and reads text out loud. If a website isn’t WCAG compliant, this function may be severely hindered or impossible.
“The WCAG 2.0 AA guidelines are the standard that has been incorporated by the DOJ in its settlement agreements with public accommodations,” reports the Society for Human Resource Management. Therefore, businesses that follow these guidelines (the latest iteration is WCAG 2.1) can not only achieve ADA compliance but also better serve more customers.
Is my company’s website WCAG compliant?
Each of the WCAG provides a testable checkpoint that makes it possible to determine whether a website is compliant and at what level. Here are a few basic questions that can act as a quick check:
• Does your website offer text alternatives to non-text content (like audio)?
• Do the images on your website provide alternative text (alt-text) that can be read by a screen reader?
• Are all of your website’s functionalities available using the keyboard and not just the mouse?
If you can’t answer yes to even one of these questions, then you’re likely not compliant with WCAG.
How important is it to make my website WCAG compliant?
According to the National Institutes of Health, “the number of people with visual impairment or blindness in the United States is expected to double to more than 8 million by 2050.” This means that more and more people will rely on websites to accommodate their special visual and auditory needs. Companies that don’t intentionally modify their websites will be effectively excluding millions from enjoying access to their services and products.
Aside from the ethical implications of running a website that’s inaccessible to people with disabilities, there’s a very real potential for legal issues that might result from operating websites that don’t comply with WCAG. ADA-related lawsuits are on the rise. Thousands of organizations and companies, including Hulu, Domino’s Pizza and others, have been sued by individuals and advocacy groups around the country claiming that their websites failed to accommodate disabilities. Many smaller businesses have been the hardest hit because paying damages can sometimes exceed the costs of updating their websites.
What does WCAG compliance look like?
There are three levels of WCAG conformance. The first level, Level A, represents the basic requirements of the guidelines. Level AA, the next level of compliance, offers a significant increase in accessibility to people with disabilities. Finally, there’s Level AAA, which is considered the gold standard of WCAG compliance and includes finer enhancements and modifications that exponentially improve webpage navigability for people with numerous types of audio and visual impairments.
You’ll know that you’ve significantly moved toward compliance when, for instance, all audio provided on your website is accompanied by text transcripts for people with hearing impairments, text-to-speech software can read all text for the visually impaired and the website allows for keyboard commands to replace the mouse function for people who cannot use a mouse.
Don’t put it off any longer.
Act now to ensure that your website is WCAG compliant to both give people with disabilities full access to your website and help avoid potential legal problems. Take the time to address each of the guidelines yourself, or use an online WCAG validator tool to help identify your website’s weaknesses. Also, it’s a good idea for you or your web developer to peruse the WCAG to inform yourselves about the best practices and procedures that may be necessary to update your website to fully comply with the industry standards as they stand today.
Since the inception of the website, it has transformed from playing a complementary role in business to taking its place as the main storefront for most companies. Given this reality, it makes sense that businesses and organizations of all sizes do everything they can to make sure that their digital realm is inclusive and accessible to everyone, regardless of their disabilities.
The information provided here is not legal advice and does not purport to be a substitute for the advice of counsel on any specific matter. For legal advice, you should consult with an attorney concerning you
