IS YOUR WEBSITE ADA COMPLIANT? HOW TO CHECK

ADA Compliance Website Audit

An ADA compliance website audit evaluates how accessible a website is to people with disabilities. Inclusionary website experiences are in high demand, whether for legal or ethical reasons. Because of the dramatic increase in lawsuits related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it is more important than ever to ensure that your website and other digital resources are accessible to people with disabilities.

The first stage in any successful ADA website accessibility strategy for an existing website is to ascertain the website’s compliance with respect to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Whether you’re just getting started with your website development or you already have a website and would like to redesign or migrate it, take advantage of the opportunity to integrate web accessibility best practices right from the start. It is less labor-intensive to deal with any accessibility issues during the website design and redesign stages than it is to go back and fix issues after you’re already published the website. The golden rule is that the earlier in the process that you can run an accessibility audit, the better it is for your website accessibility journey.

Whether you integrated accessibility into the design of your website or fixed accessibility issues discovered after it went live, the overall goal of performing an ADA compliance website audit should be to ensure that the website complies with all of the accessibility requirements specified in WCAG 2.1. Complying with these requirements ensures that users have a better experience when using the website.

How to Best Test Website for ADA Compliance

There are two approaches you can take to best test websites for ADA compliance: automated accessibility audits and manual accessibility audits. Because they are the most thorough, manual accessibility audit approaches ensure that you get the best ADA website compliance test with the most accurate findings. They assist with extensive compatibility testing for keyboards and assistive devices like screen readers. Manual website accessibility audits rely on the knowledge and experience of accessibility experts to ensure that the website complies with the ADA accessibility guidelines.

Due to the labor-intensive nature and high cost of manual website accessibility audits, website owners can opt for an automated accessibility test to help them identify the areas on their websites that require immediate attention. The primary benefit of automated accessibility tests is that they will save you a significant amount of money in resource costs because they can easily detect recurring issues. You can perform an automated accessibility test on your website by using an online ADA website testing tool, which is easily accessible via the Internet. What you should be aware of is that, based on the issues outlined in WCAG, these types of tests will only provide you with up to 30% accuracy and also run the risk of flagging false positives.

You can also take full advantage of both the manual and automated accessibility audits by implementing a hybrid of the two. A hybrid accessibility audit employs a combination of manual and automated auditing techniques and is the best approach because it maximizes the advantages of both manual and automated accessibility approaches. A hybrid accessibility audit allows you to tailor the audit to your company’s or organization’s capacity and needs, allowing you to fill gaps that manual and automated accessibility approaches have.

Contact us today for a candid discussion with one of our accessibility experts to learn more about the ADA compliance website audit. You can also get the best ADA website compliance test by clicking here to access our free online website testing tool by clicking here.