What is ADA Website Compliance?
The American Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 is a civil rights law that is meant to protect individuals with disabilities in all aspects of public life, including: work, school, transportation and all areas that are open to the public. On September 15, 2010, the Department of Justice published revised and enforceable accessibility standards, the 2010 ADA Standards for Acceptable Design.
What is WCAG?
The WCAG was developed by individuals and organizations world-wide, also known as the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), in order to ensure inclusiveness by making the web accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. The WAI uses the W3C process in order to establish appropriate recommendations for web accessibility. This process includes a working draft, wide review working draft, candidate recommendation, proposed recommendation and then established W3C guidelines.
WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
WCAG 1.0
was published on May 5, 1999, which was the first document that outlined guidelines for page authors and site designers.
WCAG 2.0
was published on December 11, 2008, to include a broad group of web technologies. It was also designed to include future technologies. In comparison to WCAG 1.0, which was developed with checkpoints, the WCAG 2.0 was developed with guidelines that have a success criteria.
WCAG 2.1
was published on June 5, 2018 with 17 changes and added a new criteria for success.
Principles and Levels of Compliance
There are four main principles that must be met in order to have a compliant website.
Perceivable
The information on your website and interface components, such as menus and navigation elements, must be accessible by all.
Understandable
The user interface and information provided must be understandable.
Operable
Navigation and all user interface components must be operable.
Robust
The content must be robust enough so a wide range of users, even those who must use assistive technologies, can access and use the site.
Level A
This is the minimum level of conformance. If this level of conformance is not met, then the site won’t be accessible to a large number of people.
Level AA
This is considered to be the acceptable level of conformance, which means that most assistive technologies can be used to access the information provided on the site.
Level AAA
This is the highest level of conformance and what everyone is striving for but isn’t required. This level indicates that everything on the site is completely accessible by assistive technologies.
Free Demo Report
There are four main principles that must be met in order to have a compliant website.