With ADA web compliance officially validated by a class action lawsuit filed against Parkwood Entertainment over Beyonce’s official website, we wanted to share some of the website guidelines and requirements set by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The following items provide a provide background as to what is required by federal acts, such as the ADA, for modern website compliance. For the official guidelines and breakdown, please visit: https://www.w3.org/
Level A – Conformance
Level A conformance completes the bare minimum requirements set by the ADA, WCAG(Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and Sec 508.
Metadata and Page Titles
The metadata that represents characteristics of your website such as the title of a page should describe, for a screen reader (which translates text to audio), the purpose of the page or content.
Navigation
Pages should reflect the navigation, in sequence.
Alt-Text
Images, and similar pieces of content, need alt-text tags that describes the content for screen readers.
Input Fields
Forms need descriptive instructions such as the purpose of the form, labels for fields, etc.
Design for assistive technologies
Your website needs to be designed so that assistive technologies, such as keyboard shortcuts and screen readers (which translates text to audio), can easily browse your website.
Captions + Audio available for video content
All video content must provide captions and audio. If the content does not have audio, then a description of the content must be made available for assistive technologies.
Keyboard and Character Key Shortcuts
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smAPpgNDeUQ
Color
Color Safe has created an awesome tool that generates accessible color palettes that work within WCAG’s guidelines.
Link: http://colorsafe.co/
Labels
Modules / components that contain text, or images of text, should have an accurate description for assistive technologies.
Audio Controls
All audio content must provide the visitor the ability to pause, stop and control the volume of audio content independently.
Links
If any text is linked, make sure the visitor understands where the link leads.
Errors
Provide error messages and prompts, both in text and for assistive technologies, that clearly describes the issue.
Automatic Content Controls
Provide the ability to pause, stop and resume content modules/components that start automatically.
Level AA – Conformance
AA conformance protects your organization and is attainable through a commitment to how your team formats content and how your organization’s website is developed. Content + Development go hand in hand if your organization wants to achieve AA compliance.
Resizing Text
Without the aid of assistive technologies, text throughout your website must be able to scale up to 200% without the loss of content or functionality.
Audio Descriptions
Audio descriptions provided for all video content
Text Style Properties
Follow a set of text style properties with include line height, spacing following paragraphs, letter spacing and word spacing set by WCAG.
Link to styling for screen readers: https://www.levelaccess.com/csscontentproperty/
Content Contrast
Link to some examples: https://webaim.org/articles/contrast/
Live Audio Captions
Captions provided for all live audio content
And much more…
