How ADA Compliance Improves UX/UI by Helping Individuals Access Information
Customers with visual impairments or other cognitive disabilities experience content differently. People with disabilities may not be able to experience your website and information the same way.
According to the CDC, over 26 percent of the American population experiences some kind of disability
This means that many Americans require a more optimized user experience and functionality to experience website content.
There are countless strategies to create an intuitive, user-friendly experience for all. Learn more about how ensuring your website’s ADA compliance can improve the overall user experience (UX) and user interface (UI), all while providing a positive experience for individuals with disabilities, potential customers and brand loyalists alike.
What is ADA Compliance?
ADA Compliance refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design. These standards were established by the United States Department of Justice in 2010, creating guidelines to ensure online accessibility rights for people with disabilities.
By disregarding ADA Compliance, your business not only may miss opportunities to connect with so many consumers, but also risks being discriminatory to those with cognitive impairments or other types of disabilities.
Failure to comply with accessibility compliance can also lead to potential legal fees, and can be detrimental to your reputation as a company and brand. You should ask yourself the following questions to ensure your website has proper accessibility functionality.
How Do We Use Color on Our Website?
Color should not only be considered from a design perspective, but for accessibility standards as well. People who experience color blindness can have a difficult time viewing content with color as the primary distinguishing feature, which is why it shouldn’t be used to indicate positive or negative attributes within digital content. You should also avoid using color as a primary indicator in general, and always provide another way to provide emphasis like underlines, asterisks, etc. Using colors with high contrast, for example, using dark and light colors together, is a best practice in order to make it visible to a wider audience.
Are We Using Captioning and Alt Text?
Providing alternative text, or ‘Alt text’, is a simple way to improve the accessibility of your website, and should be part of any accessibility audit of both your web and social content. Alt text provides a textual description of an image on your website. Alt text descriptions can offer a person who is blind the opportunity to experience images within your website, just in a different way.
By using a screen reader, users can experience content as it is read out loud. Similarly, closed captioning helps to convert audio into written text that can be experienced by people with auditory impairments who may have difficulty hearing.
Closed captioning should be provided for any video content on your website to ensure everyone can access the content of the video.
Is Our Website Easy to Navigate?
All websites should contain multiple paths for users to find information, which can help people with visual impairments navigate websites with ease. Doing so also caters to consumer preference, offering them the opportunity to explore your website through navigation menus, search functions, related links and more. It’s also best practice to include headlines to break up large chunks of text, which can in turn improve your web page’s SEO performance.
Can Users View This Content Using Other Input Devices like Screen Readers?
Some consumers may use tools like screen readers, a touch screen, or a mouse in order to access content. Screen readers are often necessary for people who are blind in order to use the Internet, which is why it’s crucial that your website is constructed in a way that allows this technology to read back text in an accurate way.
Ensuring that your content is well-organized with proper code, and contains headlines, paragraphs and quotations can help screen readers read more effectively.
Also include detailed descriptions for images, and check that your website allows users to zoom in and zoom out accordingly.
Take Steps to Optimize your Website’s Accessibility
Ready to improve your customer journey and enhance your website’s accessibility features? WT Digital Agency can help you improve your existing website’s accessibility, or build an accessible website from the ground up. We can help your business develop a user interface that is accessible for everyone, improve your website experience, and bring your site up to ADA standards.
Are you ready to take the next step and learn more about accessibility? Let’s get to work.