As we’ve been tackling this here for our corp. site revamp, I thought I’d share this quick bit of commentary I also just shared to somebody’s question about ADA COMPLIANCE and the fact it’s becoming “a big deal” here in the U.S..
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TL:DR — There is an ADA compliance plugin for WordPress worth looking at.
However, some stuff might be considered questionable; for example for ADA Compliance, it’s likely bad form to continue using title tags for images in addition to alt tags, even though we’ve been doing that for SEO for years, and because some of us like the hover function for a label.
However, this (title tags on images) should now be abandoned as bad for ADA, and really useless for SEO (basically start using proper captions under photos all the time!).
Stuff like that. Some of the ADA compliance stuff is, ironically, already included in the ‘audit’ usability score stuff in Chrome/Lighthouse — this is where some of that tap target and stuff too tiny to read warnings come from.
So I’ve been telling folks
(1) run audit for BEST PRACTICES with Chrome (F12 – audit) and learn what the stuff means to get 100% ‘usability’ score; if you don’t have 100% score then you are likely not going to be ADA compliant, and it’s a thing to have best usability possible for Google
(2) run the ADA Compliance plugin for WordPress to at least start looking at options — https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-ada-compliance-check-basic/
(I have no relationship to the TagDiv folks other than having been around here since they launched; and have no relationship to the plugin noted)
QUOTE from the plugin noted above:
Why use the WP ADA Compliance Plugin?
It’s the law! In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. This law applies to all Federal agencies, some state and local agencies as well as any entity creating websites for applicable agencies.
There is also a strong business case for accessibility. Studies show that accessible websites have better search results, reduced maintenance costs, and increased audience reach. All of which increases profit margin for a business.
Some background from the various blog posts on this topc —
upshot, you need to research whether it applies to you, or not, or just good idea for 2020.
——– excerpts from various blog posts:
ADA is short for the Americans with Disabilities Act, which became law in 1990. It prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life. The ADA, at least for Title III (private sector businesses), only applies to companies that employ 15 or more persons.
https://hackernoon.com/ada-compliance-lawsuits-and-your-web-presence-797ef03cdef2
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5 Reasons Your Website Should Be ADA Compliant. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was developed in 1990 and is meant to ensure that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as anyone else. … Recently, a ruling has been passed declaring the official standard of website accessibility for businesses.
https://blog.cws.net/5-reasons-your-website-should-be-ada-compliant
Who Needs To Be Compliant?
The general consensus right now is that any business considered a “public accommodation” should have an ADA compliant web presence.
“Public accommodation” could apply to most things depending on who is making the interpretation. Generally, however, this would refer to B2C, retail, or any business the general public should be able to use, understand and access easily.
The judgment against Winn-Dixie was determined after the courts felt that the website was too heavily integrated with the physical store presence. This could have been prompted by things like placing their weekly ad on the website.
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