According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over one billion people have different kinds of disabilities. Considering that population, the U.S Department of Justice makes sure websites are ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant.
ADA compliance refers to making digital content accessible for disabled communities. Not following the ADA compliance guidelines might penalize you with fines up to $50,000 or more.
But how do you make your website compliant with the ADA standard?
Xcompliant is the ADA compliance website tool that supports all kinds of Content Management Systems (CMS). This tool also provides customization to adjust the accessibility features according to your brand.
Keep reading this post to learn more about this website accessibility tool and how it helps your business to stay compliant with the ADA and WCAG 2.1 standards.
Choosing a Website Accessibility Tool
Web accessibility has become a need of today’s online business. It’s a global standard that follows the ADA compliance guidelines for your website. If you don’t follow these guidelines, regulatory bodies might penalize you.
Xcompliant offers a complete package for accessibility compliance. You don’t need to integrate additional resources into your website for improved accessibility.
The following features are available in Xcompliant package:
Screen-Reader
Do you know that over 7 million Americans suffer from a visual disability? Just because these individuals are visually impaired doesn’t mean they have no right to visit your website. Instead, they need alternative methods to read or engage in any digital activity, unlike people with normal vision.
To assist the visually disabled population, it’s your responsibility to add accessibility features to your website, like screen-readers. ADA compliance guidelines also suggest using different technologies to make a website accessible for everyone, including disabled communities.
Screen readers help people understand the onscreen text by:
- Audible version of the digital text
- Tactile version of the digital text
When you enable screen-readers to your website, blind users or those with low vision can use your website. They also understand the web content you upload, including:
- Images
- Animations
- Videos
You can find different screen-reading tools that help users navigate other software, websites, and operating systems.
Following are the common users of screen-readers:
- Blind people
- Low eyesight people
- People suffering from dyslexia
- People who are learning a new language
- Who prefer listening rather than reading content
How to Make Your Website Screen-Reader Accessible?
While developing or maintaining your website, you must add screen-reader accessibility to make your website usable by visually impaired users. This assistive technology translates all the content on your web pages.
Therefore, ensure that you allow this technology to access the HTML files. These files contain all the readable and viewable content of your website.
Look at the following steps on how Xcompliant makes your website screen-reader accessible.
- Use of HTML Tags. The screen-readers check HTML tags and understand the content inside the HTML files using those tags. So, using proper tags in HTML with respect to the context can help visually impaired users easily navigate the website.
- Write Proper Headings. Headings on your web pages help the screen-readers to understand the content. Headings also work as a preview which helps the screen-readers to skim the content and filter out only relevant information for the user.
- Use of Alt Text. Alt text is a useful HTML tag that is a text version of non-text content. It describes the image, video, or any other media content. If there is no alt text, screen-readers might ignore the content or just read the file name.
Keyboard Navigation
Not all users can use a mouse or touchpad because of disabilities. For example, some visually impaired users find it difficult to spot the pointer on the screen. Due to physical challenges, other disabled users find it difficult to move the mouse.
You must cater to their needs and integrate keyboard navigation into your website.
What is Keyboard Navigation Accessibility?
Keyboard navigation allows users to navigate through a website without using a mouse. Although this technology seems of rare usage, the following people get help from keyboard navigation:
- People who are suffering from motor impairment can’t use a mouse
- Blind users who can’t see the on screen mouse pointer
- People with conditions like repetitive stress injuries (RSI)
Keyboard navigation makes it easy for such users to access your website. Visitors can navigate your website using the keyboard buttons instead of the mouse.
For example, the “tab” key is used to move from one link to another. Then, with the help of a screen reader, the disabled user can listen to the anchor text written on the link. That’s how users get access to your website using keyboard navigation.
Xcompliant ensures that your website has sequential links for keyboard navigation. It’s because, using a mouse, users can directly go to their desired web page. But the disabled users must go in sequence to the web page they want.
Test Keyboard Accessibility of Your Website
You can test the keyboard accessibility of your website in the following way:
- Click the browser’s search bar and leave the mouse.
- Press “tab” to start navigating to the next buttons and links.
- Press Shift+tab to go to the previous button and link.
By navigating through the keyboard, you might have seen that the focus moves in sequence according to the website’s layout. Of course, going through all the elements in sequence might be annoying, but that’s how keyboard navigation works.
Disabled users can also follow keyboard navigation to fill and submit forms. By pressing the “tab,” the focus will move to the next field.
Therefore, it’s important to make your website accessible via keyboard navigation. That way, disabled users can easily use your website without using a mouse.
UI/UX Design
Your website’s design or UI/UX is as important as its functionality. The purpose of UI/UX is to make your visitors understand what you are offering. It also helps users gather information easily from the content you upload on your website.
Xcompliant scans your website and prepares an accessibility report regarding the website’s design. After analyzing that report, this automated accessibility platform checks all key design factors, including:
- Contrast
- Text size
- Font
- Spacing
- Color saturation
The WCAG 2.1 accessibility guidelines suggest making the website’s design more accessible for disabled users. That means the UI metrics you follow must lie under the WCAG standard. Otherwise, your website’s design will fail the accessibility compliance test.
ADA Compliant UI/UX Components
Xcompliant focuses on the following components to make them ADA compliant while auditing your website’s UI/UX:
- Color Selection. Visually impaired users face difficulty discerning foreground and background text colors. That makes readability difficult for them. So, selecting the right text color makes web content readable for them.
- Meaningful Links. The links on your web pages must have meaningful anchor texts. That way, disabled users can save time by listening to the anchor text and visiting only the required links.
- Consistent Components. Components having similar functionality should be consistent throughout your website. A consistent design system is more accessible to the disabled community who want to use your website.
- Consistent Navigation. The navigation on your website should follow the same order. The page numbers must be in sequence so that users can easily go to a specific page and return to the previous page.
Customized Accessibility Option
Xcompliant offers a complete customized accessibility solution. You can choose almost all elements that fit your brand, including:
- Template
- Theme
- Design
- Icons
- Buttons
- Text Color
- Web interactions
The AI-based web platform allows you to make customized decisions and check the preview before finalizing the website.
Customization in web accessibility is a unique yet important feature.
In 2020, around 4.5 online businesses started in the U.S. If you plan to join the competition, you must stand out from the crowd. Your online presence, i.e., the website, must also provide value to customers as well as visitors who are disabled.
When you develop a website for your business, you should know that the disabled community is also a part of your target audience. Regardless of your niche, your customers include all types of customers. That’s what ADA compliance enforces.
The best tool to make your website ADA compliant supports all kinds of CMS. Users don’t need to add extensions while making their website accessible. This tool is a complete package and follows the latest ADA compliance standard.
How Does Customization in Website Accessibility Work?
The ADA compliance tool makes your website accessible following the WCAG 2.1 standard. This tool also allows you to use the AI customization platform and adjust the accessibility features according to your brand.
You can get the Xcompliant panel right on your website to set the AI metrics for accessibility. That AI tool optimizes the following metrics according to the ADA accessibility guidelines:
- Website code
- UI/UX
- Content
- Assistive technologies
So, you can pick the theme that suits your business and layout designs to give the best user experience to the disabled community.
Conclusion
You can integrate Xcompliant with all kinds of CMS and make your website more inclusive. This platform also audits your website, uses automated accessibility solutions and provides full customization.
So, if you are looking to integrate accessibility features into your website, Xcompliant is the tool you must go for.