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ADA Compliance Checklist for Websites 2020
If you consider your business to be a public accommodation and you think you need our services to solve your web accessibility issues and get your current website ADA compliant, here is a quick ADA website checklist of site accessibility compliance items that our developers follow when they update the online experience of your website for disabled users. One of the free digital accessibility Audit tools online to check your accessibility violations is the Webaim WAVE script.
Please fill out our contact form to speak to one of the members of our Accessibility Standards team about doing a free review of your ADA exposure. Most ADA Website Level A compliance cleanup projects will cost between $1,000 and $2,500. To be clear, we are not guaranteeing to deliver a 100% ADA compliant website with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines at this lower budget. If we can clear off all the visual content items on the list below, you are definitely doing a much better job helping people with disabilities to access your website.
Website Accessibility Checklist:
1. Document Language attributes should be added in the website header file to tell the screen reader software what language to read. Font sizes should also be large enough for people with visual impairments.
2. Alt tags provide text captions and text descriptions for images (photos, vector graphics and icons) that helps a visually impaired person (who cannot see the graphic) know what the graphic is trying to portray. You can also utilize audio descriptions for audio files.
3. Headings such as page titles, H1, H2 and H3 heading tags (used for headlines and subheadlines) need to be nested correctly. Page headings should follow a logical sequence so that the assistive technology in the screen reader software can read each page element in the right logical order:
<h1>should hold</h1>
<h2>which should hold</h2>
<h3>, and so on. If WAVE detects a skipped heading level, it might mean the code goes from a</h3>
<h1> to an </h1>
<h3> or an </h3>
<h2>to anBest practices: Use one top-level heading
<h1>, and below that, you may choose to include multiple</h1>
<h2>. If there are even smaller headings within the sub-sections, go to
<h3>. If no heading level is skipped, you beat the game..
4. ARIA landmarks can be set for ARIA screen readers to identify consistent labels for header, footer, sidebar, and page content.
5. Skip to the main content enables people with keyboard access navigation software to skip links and “jump” right to the main content of the page (and thus skip the nav menus).
6. Tabbing Through the Page ensures all Accessible website elements can be accessed by using the tab key on a keyboard. This Accessibility Feature can be used to skip navigation links.
7. Missing Online Forms Labels can impact the ability of a person with disabilities to enter information into a website. Each of the form fields should have a label associated to describe what information the user is being asked to fill in (“First Name” or “Phone Number,”). Screen reading software treats these labels like alt text attributes. An example of a compliant form is having a a
ADA Website Compliance Content Adjustments
8. Navigation menus allow people to access each page of your site. Use breadcrumbs so visitors can figure out where they are inside your website and how to access other pages. Avoid having orphaned pages that have no parent pages in your site hierarchy.
9. Links and Anchor Text describe each link. You can leave off a description when the anchor text is is clear. Links such as “Click Here” should have description tags. Descriptive anchor text is a good solution for ADA purposes.
10. Video files should have captions and transcriptions.
11. Audio Files and audio clips should include links to related transcriptions.
12. Documents like PDF files should have HTML or text transcript versions of the content inside those files. You should target the native PDF files to also meet ADA requirements.
Web Accessibility Technology Configurations
13. Plug-ins related to your WordPress site should be tested to make sure they are ADA compliant.
14. ADA Plugins like UserWay must be configured to be compatible with your site coding.
15. Text Adjustment Controls enable a person to enlarge text or change font colors to be more readable (in case there is light colored text on a light screen or smaller fonts that are hard to read)
16. Include an Accessibility Statement with a sitemap of pages in your site which describes the available information on your website. The critical point is to offer equal access by making sure your website accessibility passes muster.