To avoid alienating populations and legal ramifications it is essential for a specialty food business’ website to be Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990-accessible, meaning people with disabilities must be able to use the website.
Alex Philips, senior account manager at UserWay, a software company ensuring website accessibility, spoke about the topic during last week’s SFA In the Know webinar titled, “ADA Accessibility and Why it Matters for Your Site,” sharing relevant statistics, and demonstrating how the service identifies and remediates accessibility issues in a website.
“We care about equality in the digital sphere and that everyone should have the same opportunities to access web content as everyone else,” said Philips.
ADA Accessibility is a legal requirement for all websites. Although not officially laid out in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which set guidelines for ensuring equal access to buildings, recreational facilities, and more, the act relies upon a set of rules created by the W3C, a nonprofit that set the world’s standards for web accessibility, explained Philips. The rules are accountable by state and federal law.
In 2021 5,000 ADA-related website lawsuits were filed in the U.S., and the estimated cost to settle one of these lawsuits for a small business is generally between $5,000 and $25,000 according to research from UserWay.
Beyond being required by law, Philips affirms that ADA compliance is paramount because it affects so many people, and because the internet has become an integral part of existing in the world today.
“Let’s think about the fact that one in four adults in the U.S. lives with a disability,” he said. “For many websites, the way they’re designed and the way they look can make it difficult for them to access and navigate those sites.”
One product that UserWay created to measure accessibility is its AI-Powered Accessibility Widget, which checks the common issues often associated with non-compliance, including color contrast to accommodate people with eye-related disabilities, accessible buttons for people with vision or hearing-related disabilities, alt-text that provides detailed descriptions of graphical website elements for people with vision disabilities, and more.
It also allows people to tailor a website to their specific needs, like toggling the text size, changing the font to be more dyslexia friendly, and pausing animations for people with visual disabilities.
To learn more about how to ensure your website is ADA accessible, watch the webinar on demand in the SFA Learning Center.
Related: Leveraging AI: Advice from Thorpe, Feiger; Acing the Third-Party Audit: Tips From Kinchla, Seddon