But if your website or digital product doesn’t include features to support these assistive technologies, it can be difficult, or sometimes impossible, for people with disabilities to experience your content. This has led to an increasing number of lawsuits and subsequent rulings by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in favor of plaintiffs.

How Will The Recent U.S. Federal Regulations Impact My Website?

While the regulations that took effect in January are specifically for U.S. federal agencies, this ruling leaves many wondering how pending similar legislation could affect their own websites. The DOJ has stated that in 2018 it will publish its proposed ruling for all “public accommodations” websites that will no doubt have broader implications for most websites.

The term “public accommodation” could apply to many things, depending on who is making the interpretation. Generally, however, this refers to consumer, retail or any business the general public should be able to use, understand and access easily. If that describes your business, the message is clear: Mandatory accessible website compliance is on the near horizon.

At Mightybytes, we have seen an increasing number of website accessibility requests from clients over the past year. Though the public accommodations ruling has not yet been given (as of this writing), to be safe, we recommend that our clients adopt version 2.0 of the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) as quickly as possible. These guidelines provide the clearest path toward making your website accessible to people with disabilities. So what does that mean exactly? Let’s take a look.

There are three levels of digital accessibility: A, AA, and AAA.

Using Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to Improve Your Website

The WCAG 2.0 guidelines provide a framework for website owners to make their content more accessible to people with disabilities. These guidelines come in three levels:

A: The easiest level to achieve, this improves accessibility for most sites by making it easier for browsing readers to navigate a site and translate its content, but it is still pretty basic. AA: This level makes content accessible to people with a wider range of disabilities by providing guidance on elements such as color contrast and error identification. Regulators prefer this level. AAA: The highest level of accessibility compliance, this makes content accessible to the widest range of people, but it can significantly alter the design of a site. Government legislation doesn’t typically require this because it’s not always possible to conform.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Principles

Four primary principles that are not technology-specific shape the guidelines:

1. Perceivable.

Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.

2. Operable.

User interface components and navigation must be operable with a variety of tools.

3. Understandable.

Websites must use clear, concise language and offer functionality that is easy to comprehend.

4. Robust.

Websites should work well enough across platforms, browsers and devices to account for personal choice and user need.

While the four principles above are meant for people with disabilities, websites that adhere to these principles also tend to have more usable web content and are easier for search engines to crawl. Embracing digital accessibility is a more sustainable strategy as well.

Let’s explore these principles in a bit more detail. Each includes several implementation guidelines meant to provide a foundation for getting started on website improvements (note that this is not a comprehensive list).

To improve website perception, add descriptive alternative text to all images.

How Do I Make My Website More Perceivable?

Your content needs to be presented in ways that are perceivable to a variety of users with unique circumstances who are using an array of devices, browsers and assistive technologies.

Here are 10 ways to make your website content more perceivable to users of all abilities:

Add descriptive alternative text to all images. Give users the ability to resize text without breaking page layout or structure. Allow users to easily turn audio or video off if irrelevant to their experience. Always add captions and transcripts to audio or video content. Avoid Flash or other proprietary technologies. Display content in sequential order with a visual hierarchy that is easy to understand. Keep layouts simple and intuitive. Use text in addition to colors and shapes to provide context when possible. Colors or shapes are not the only ways people determine meaning. Be sure any text flattened into images is for decoration only and not done to convey meaning. As above, use alternative text whenever possible. Create high contrast between text and background colors.

The Guardian website offers helpful breadcrumb navigation so users always know where they are.

How Do I Make My Website More Operable?

Users of all abilities must be able to navigate your content and user interface components in ways that make sense to them. Not everybody uses a mouse. Not everybody has a touchscreen. Be sure everyone can navigate your content with ease no matter the devices they use.

Here are five ways to make your content more operable across devices and platforms:

Make all functionality easily available from a keyboard. Provide users with enough time to read and use content. Avoid quick-moving banners and allow users to return to content or stop motion altogether. Do not design content in a way that is known to cause seizures. Provide ways to help users navigate, find content and determine where they are. Descriptive page titles, sequential order of pages, understandable links and ability to bypass blocks of content that are on multiple pages can help with this. Include breadcrumbs and other navigation components that help users easily understand where they are.

Etsy offers helpful hints when users don’t properly fill in form fields.

How Do I Make My Site More Understandable?

Users should easily comprehend a site’s content and functionality. Embrace clarity and concise communication at all times.

Here are four ways to make your existing website more understandable:

Improve the readability of text-based content. Avoid overuse of abbreviations, jargon and a content reading level higher than ninth grade. Create site pages that appear and operate in predictable ways. Make sure navigation and component functionality are consistent across your site and be sure content doesn’t change unless a user does something specific to achieve an expected result. Help users avoid and correct mistakes by offering input assistance. Clear instructions and suggestions for rectifying common error types can go a long way in helping users of all abilities quickly get what they need. Include form validation that clearly explains what users should enter into fields.

The W3C’s free Markup Validation Service will assess how well your site uses web standards.

How Do I Make My Site More Robust?

Maximize your website or digital product’s compatibility with current and future user agents, including assistive technologies, to ensure you meet criteria for the robust guidelines.

Following web development standards will help you maximize your site’s compatibility with assistive technologies. A standards-based website with clean code will offer a more robust experience across a wider array of devices and platforms.

Use the W3C’s markup validation service to ensure your site complies to current web standards and be sure to clean up any incomplete tags or duplicate elements.

So How Do I Get Started?

Making your website’s content accessible and useful to as many people as possible, including people with disabilities, is a morally responsible, inclusive and soon-to-be-required thing to do.

By offering people better experiences, they are far more likely to become repeat visitors and passionate advocates for your brand. Plus, following the above guidelines will ensure your content can be more easily crawled by search engines, which helps people find your content. Most importantly, why alienate as many as 1 billion people in the world when you can be sure your content is as accessible as possible?

To get started with the guidelines above, take these steps:

Perform an accessibility audit.

While no replacement for the manual audit of an entire site, using an online accessibility tool can quickly provide a baseline from which to gauge time and workload. Try AChecker or WebAIM’s Wave tool for starters. For more detailed information, this helpful post compares three popular automated accessibility testing tools.

Create a plan.

Outline priorities and timelines for each of the above guidelines. It is inevitable that some things on your checklist will be easier to implement than others. Prioritize.

Implement changes.

Make improvements in small, manageable chunks based on your available resources.

Train your team.

Get company stakeholders on board with keeping your website compliant over time.

Embrace transparency.

Make sure everyone knows this is a priority for you and your organization. If you’re in the process of transitioning your website, post something saying as much. People will appreciate knowing that.

While this is a simplified description of what is an ongoing and time-consuming process, it covers the basics and can help your organization and its stakeholders build consensus on priorities.

See how your site rates with this website accessibility checklist.

At Mightybytes, we put together a more robust website accessibility checklist to help organizations run through the process outlined above. If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, check out the digital accessibility posts on our blog or feel free to contact us.