The journey of equality and accessibility for people with disabilities in the USA has been long and demanding. However, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 has prevented discrimination to date. 

Over time, there have been many versions of this act. As a result of digitization, we can see the inclusion of WCAG in the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is the benchmark for website accessibility.

But what exactly comes under ADA and WCAG? Let’s begin with the terms for our better understanding. 

ADA

The Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA is often connected with the physical accommodations that businesses should make for people with disabilities. These facilities normally incorporate, for instance, wheelchair availability and the utilization of Braille for clients who are visually impaired. Be that as it may, the ADA also stretches out to the advanced domain. 

ADA requires a serve following of the accessibility rules without any specific directions or guidelines. Hence, WCAG. Moreover, since there is a surge in digital content WCAG is what we should look into.

WCAG

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG, created by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is an ISO standard. These guidelines make the most-acknowledged way to be utilized by engineers and organizations. However, it is constantly updated to meet all accessibility needs. The latest version of this is WCAG 2.2 which later has expanded to WCAG 3.0, having additions in the rules.

These guidelines started with WCAG 2.0 version that included 4 main principles and 12 criteria. This was a broad and nitty-gritty record that contained countless principles, rules, clarifications, and guidelines to these clarifications. Going further, version 2.1 extended with 17 criteria that focused mainly on tablet and mobile interactions. It showed proper guidelines but not for all users with disabilities. Its focus was on making websites accessible for low vision and cognitive incapacities.

The introduction of version 2.2 fulfilled the new digital requirement quite impressively. It states that in the case of Captcha, there needs to be an alternative path to authenticate that should not need some cognitive tests. Version 3.0 focuses on the web content and its operation on a much wider canvas. It is more approachable, operable, and vigorous with regard to disabilities. 

Why does ADA/WCAG compliance matter?

Why do you make your website accessible? What is in it for my business? These are the questions that often come up without a clear answer. So allow us to simplify it:

• Provide equal opportunities to everyone
• Increase your audience reach with the disabled community
• Better user experience for all
• Better SEO support
• Ensuring compliance with the federal law
• Low website bounce rate, average visit duration increases

In case your website fails to be ADA compliant, there is a hefty fine of $55,000 to $75,000 fine for first-time violations and a $150,000 fine for every repeat violation.

Ajackus and ADA/WCAG compliance: How do we help you?

Since ADA is one of the USA’s most extensive bits of regulations, it incorporates everything from prerequisites for organizations and not-for-profit associations as well. We at Ajackus aim to maintain and promote the Americans with Disabilities Act. Working on the POUR principle of these guidelines – Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust – we give your organizations:

1.   Accessibility testing and monitoring

Considering the main motive behind the ADA/WCAG compliance to make your website accessible for all audiences, Ajackus gives your website:

• Keyboard accessibility
• Accessibility through speech and visual support tools
• Alternative text to images
• Structuring your web pages using CSS layout and styles
• Accessibility at varied Zoom levels

These points are just a glimpse of what we can offer you. However, with the newer version coming along every few years, monitoring and maintenance of the websites is crucial. It is advisable to have period checks every 6 months. It ensures that your website grows, as web pages get added. With this, there is a high opportunity that accessibility issues will emerge. Having a complete understanding of the importance of monitoring, we at Ajackus plan and execute standard site checks and assessments for your websites. 

2.   Digital accessibility and monitoring

Mobile/Web applications may be coded to make everything accessible with just a tap but for people with disabilities, not so much. Here is where we step in. While making your websites with ADA/WCAG compliance, we make sure about the seamless user experience in order to make them more fit for use. We provide you with insights using various tools like Accessibility Insight, ANDI, Text Spacing Bookmarklet, Heading Bookmarklet, Landmark Bookmarklet, and many more.  

3.   Disability inclusion

It is characterized as having individuals with disabilities taking active participation in everyday activities similar to their non-disabled peers. It is a fact that 26% of the USA’s adult citizens are disabled. If your business doesn’t have a strategy for those, then you are missing out on your potential audience. Disability inclusion is basically utilizing this untapped market for your business. 

How to get the compliance certification?

There is no such association, organization, or any kind an entity that certifies regardless of whether the organization is WCAG compliant. This certification is to a greater extent a reference guide that helps your company to achieve reasonable accessibility. However, there are three ways to attain it.

1. Statement of accessibility:

This method oversees a particular set of people with disabilities. The company needs to ensure that the business attends to that particular category of disability and that it also satisfies the WCAG guidelines concerning that disability.

2. Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) Statement:

Here, the company needs to follow no set guidelines or rules. Instead, it is a template that suggests the reasonable accessibility of websites and applications. Moreover, this method of certification is the best possible attempt at compliance.

3. WCAG conformance claim:

In the conformance claim, version 2.0 of the WCAG guidelines is more stable than the earlier versions, hence, WCAG 2.0 conformation is the most preferred way of getting the certification. This method has 3 levels of conformance as a three-tiered grading system:

• Level A: Minimal compliance of accessibility
• Level AA: Acceptable compliance, that is the conformance cited in pieces of legislation or in legal settlements
• Level AAA: Maximum compliance

Some FAQs regarding ADA/WCAG compliance:

1. Is there something that designers can do to make the websites and applications more color compliant?

Certainly. Section 3 of the WCAG compliance talks about color contrast. The designers can include colors like Red, Blue, Green, and their combinations while they create websites and applications. These colors are supposedly the best in order to highlight content.

2. Are there similar compliance requirements in other geographical regions?

26% of the population falls under the category of disabilities. In order to make the websites and applications more accessible to all, North America has pushed the ADA/WCAG compliance regulation however, Australia also has it as a legal act.

 3. Can we leverage the experience as a company to target those markets?

Absolutely. Making your website compliant is also more of an opportunity for every business to reach out to more customers.

 4. Is there any legal requirement to be WCAG compliant?

For the government offices and their contractors, yes, they are expected to be compliant with WCAG 2.0 version. However, for private organizations, the answer to this is more complicated. They are not legally necessary to follow a particular standard like WCAG, however, their websites and applications truly do need to be accessible under any conformation.  This will help them to avoid penalties. We have observed that private organizations like Netflix and Target have been sued in the past which has lost them money as well as reputation. 

 5. What kind of budget do we have to spend to get the compliances done?

The budget depends on the specific application and the utility that is targeted to be made compliant. The designing of an application from its initial stages might require less budget. On an existing application, it is volume-driven. It depends on the number of functionalities and APIs. However, any budget spent on making the applications compliant will definitely be worth making sure the reputation remains intact. 

6. Is there any deadline for companies to be WCAG compliant?

The government has not yet issued any specific date to be the last to make the applications compliant. However, there is definitely an urgency for it to avoid hefty fines.

In short

Here at Ajackus, one of our most noteworthy missions is to further develop society through accessible and comprehensive signage. We accept that this, likewise, incorporates education about ADA/WCAG compliance. It gives access to everyone to have the option to partake in everything. We believe in maintaining the vision of the ADA through robust, secure, and scalable business solutions.

While we cater to a wide range of clients and their requirements, we make sure that our work satisfies the ADA/WCAG compliance guidelines. Click here to see a glimpse of our work on the same.

There is not enough time to make your digital world accessible on your own. Hence, outsourcing to an experienced partner like Ajackus may be the way to go. But why should you outsource this project? To know more about this click here. 

Need help with ADA/WCAG? Connect with us here.

Let us take a step together on your accessibility journey!