Web accessibility is not a one-time task you can check off on a to-do list. It’s a process; it’s a philosophy. It requires ongoing, continual effort to make sure that every part of your website is available to everyone who might want to use it.
This includes users with various disabilities, including visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive disabilities or impairments that might require them to use assistive technology (AT) in order to use the web.
It’s pretty simple, really.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (usually shortened to “the ADA”) is a comprehensive set of federal laws that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities.
The problem is that the internet wasn’t around (at least in the form it is today) when the ADA was written, and so for the past 31 years, web technology had advanced too fast for the law to catch up to it. That’s changing.
In 2019, a legal precedent was set when the United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Robles v. Domino’s Pizza LLC, so the 9th Circuit Court’s decision, which essentially found that Domino’s Pizza must make all of their web technology accessible to users with disabilities. This lawsuit, and many others, have begun to provide the basis for legal action taken against companies who do not ensure that their mobile apps, web apps, and websites are accessible to users with disabilities that rely on assistive technology.
So what are business owners to do? How do they know if their website is actually accessible? How can they make sure they don’t get sued? And how on earth can they afford to make their websites accessible when they’re not a large corporation like Domino’s Pizza?
That’s where we come in.
Fortunately, a set of objective criteria have been established in order to determine whether a website can be considered “accessible” or not. The W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (often shortened to “WCAG” and pronounced “wih-kagg”) have been used for over two decades and they provide the best measurement.
Originally, the WCAG 1.0 guidelines were all we had for years. But recently, WCAG 2.0 and now WCAG 2.1 are the set of criteria being used. In fact, WCAG 2.2 is coming soon, so, as you can see, it’s kind of a moving target.
Our team will analyze your website using these objective criteria, then evaluated just how accessible your WordPress website is (or isn’t). Then we’ll provide you with a report that shows you what the issues are (if any). Then we’ll get to work “fixing” the issues where we can, and replacing certain parts of your website when needed in order to comply with the guidelines. Finally, we’ll provide another report showing you how the problems have been fixed.
We don’t cheat, and we don’t use overlays.
One of the most common solutions in the past year or so is the proliferation of “website overlays,” which are little widgets that you can install for a cheap monthly fee, and these place a small round icon with a graphic of a wheelchair on it. You’ve seen these, right? The problem is: they don’t work. They’re a sloppy solution to a complex problem, they’re a bandage on a flesh wound, and they’re cheating by giving you a false sense of security. We won’t get into it here, but just know that we do not use overlays. EVER.
We use scan tools with the most cutting-edge technology available, and real-live actual humans to provide manual testing and remediation to actually fix the underlying issues that cause accessibility problems in the first place.
If that sounds like something you’re interested in, please contact us and we’ll talk about ways we can help you.