WordPress ADA compliance services

A guide to understanding the fundamentals of WordPress website accessibility and the ADA and WCAG 2.1 compliance solutions we offer.

Adapting your WordPress website to ADA and WCAG 2.1 requirements can be a bit challenging. At Freshy, we run accessibility audits and implement third-party ADA infrastructure to help you ensure WordPress ADA compliance.

Accessibility shouldn’t be an after thought

WordPress web accessibility implementation is best-practice

We’ll handle the process of making your WordPress website ADA compliant, so your visitors can browse with ease.

Perceivable

Information and user interface (UI) design are displayed to users in ways they can understand.

Operable

Navigation and functionality can be carried out via various methods, from keyboard to screen readers.

Understandable

Content and interactions are presented in a way that maximizes predictability and are easily interpreted.

WordPress ADA compliance FAQs

Web accessibility involves following best-practices of website access, coding, display, and interaction — to ensure there are no barriers for those with disabilities. This would ideally allow all WordPress site users to have equal access to both the information and functionality.

This often requires adding additional descriptive tags to existing code, improving navigation structure, ensuring colors and text are displayed in a very legible manner, etc. — so that any valuable information is available and easily accessible to all who wish to obtain it.

ADA is the American with Disabilities Act and is a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. Its goal is to provide clear and comprehensive standards and regulations throughout all facets of life, including public accommodations and telecommunications.

ADA compliance covers a broad range of areas, but we’re focusing on websites here. The accessibility standards and regulations set forth by ADA are not very specific when it comes to websites. This is where the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) come into play.

The WCAG provides guidelines/documents for web accessibility, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) — which is the main international standards organization for the Internet. Thus, the WCAG is used until the Department of Justice properly defines regulations specifically addressing the accessibility of websites.

For websites, ADA Compliance is essentially the following of specific techniques that WCAG provides guidance on.

To be honest — we’re not sure. Since we’re not lawyers, nor did we make the “rules”, we can’t accurately answer that. When it comes to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), there really aren’t any specific technical requirements for websites.

However, this doesn’t mean you should ignore ADA or web accessibility. What we do know, is that all websites should be given a good-faith-effort of becoming easily accessible. This should be the case for any user who may wish to browse your website, regardless of their disability of type of impairment. They deserve it. Making your WordPress website accessible benefits an array of individuals and businesses.

You can learn more at this W3C Intro to Web Accessibility page.

Basically, there are standards which apply to US federal agencies, and State or Local Government websites (not business/personal websites). While some disability discrimination laws do mention websites, they don’t specify the technical standards required to comply with the law. Regardless of ADA’s lack of stating websites must be fully accessible, the Department of Justice seems to rule on the side of “they should be”.

By and large, WordPress ADA plugins simply provide you with checklists of tasks that you need to carry out. They normally tell you that you need to implement alt tags and optimize your website for screen readers. However, they leave all of the hard work to you.

To adapt your website to ADA and WCAG standards, you’ll need to fully understand the guidelines for accessible design. This can involve a lot more work than you might imagine, especially if you don’t have a background in web design or development.

As part of our expert WordPress services, we can review your website to see where it meets ADA and WCAG standards and where it doesn’t. We can also show you third-party test results that indicate where your website’s weak areas are, and what can be done to address those shortcomings.

Keep in mind that there’s no official ADA certification. However, we have the expertise to ensure that your WordPress website fully meets WCAG Conformance Levels A and AA.

There is no official certification for ADA compliance.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) contains guidelines/documents for web accessibility, which are published by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) via their Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Neither the government, the guidelines, the organization, nor the initiative offer any official certification.

Third-party tools are available for WordPress that test the conformance level of the outlined WCAG standards. Testing — combined with human evaluation — help determine if a website is “compliant”.

Based on the results, there are third-party companies that are willing to “certify” the WordPress website as being compliant.

In simple terms, WCAG 2 Conformance Level A is less strict than Level AA — and is therefore more “easily” obtainable and maintainable.

  • Level A conformance means all WCAG 2 Level A requirements (success criteria) have been satisfied.
  • Level AA conformance satisifed all the WCAG 2 Level A requirements, in addition to the Level AA requirements.

You can read more information about understanding conformance requirements, or view the quick reference guide to WCAG 2 requirements.

Our ADA compliance WordPress solutions

We offer the following WordPress accessibility services:

Manual ADA compliance audit

  • Sequential heading tags — Freshy to ensure heading tags to be in sequential order.
  • Basic contrast audit — Ensure proper contrast levels of major site design elements.

Implementation of third-party ADA infrastructure

  • Image ALT tags implemented
  • Skip navigation option enabled
  • Keyboard navigation optimization
  • screen reader optimization
  • ARIA (name attributes) added and optimized
  • Additional interface capabilities — Font handling, color handling, contrast handling, animation handling, content highlighting, audio muting, content deciphering via Wikipedia and Wiktionary

Ongoing WordPress ADA compliance support

  • Ongoing scans and compliance – Includes daily scans and analysis of the WordPress site to confirm any new content is adjusted and accessibility statement.
  • Image ALT tags implemented
  • Skip navigation option enabled
  • Keyboard navigation optimization
  • screen reader optimization
  • ARIA (name attributes) added and optimized
  • Additional interface capabilities — Font handling, color handling, contrast handling, animation handling, content highlighting, audio muting, content deciphering via Wikipedia and Wiktionary

The need could soon become a requirement

New to WordPress ADA compliance audits?

Becoming ADA compliant on a WordPress website can be a lot of work! We start with the basics, and go beyond.

Target a larger audience

Whether you target a small demographic or offer services to an array of customers, you can benefit from making your  WordPress website more accessible to a broader range of individuals. Reach more visitors and keep them, by allowing screen readers to describe the images to the blind, ensuring your navigation can be used without a mouse for those with physical limitations, and more.

Improve your SEO results

Search engines have changed — becoming more human-like in their approach to crawling, consuming, and understanding page content. By making your WordPress site more accessible, it also becomes easier for both search engines and screen readers to make sense of content and structure. Your accessibility efforts can enhance your SEO endeavors as well.

Up your reputation

Show that your visitors are valuable and respected, by making their browsing experience a priority. Making an effort to include everyone will be apparent to those who need the accessibility that is implemented. Imagine they’ve been “getting by” on other websites, and are able to access your content with greater ease than expected thanks to our WordPress ADA compliance services.

Avoid the worry

With WordPress accessibility and compliance, it’s better to be proactive than reactive. Compliance should be done out of concern for your visitors — not for fear of legal action — but that can be a driving-factor for many website owners. Many esteemed brands and businesses have already been sued for lack of ADA compliance.

Meet your WordPress ADA compliance team

Our team of WordPress experts have performed numerous ADA audits on website, and have implemented accessibility compliance on numerous client sites. Through our skilled efforts, we have adapted WordPress websites to conform to WCAG standards by meeting or exceeding the requirements.

Headshots of FreshySites support team

Stop worrying about ADA lawsuits

WordPress ADA compliance lawsuits are a lot more common than you might think.

Some people proactively target websites that fail to meet ADA standards in search of a quick payday. As your website grows, it can become a bigger target for potential lawsuits.

To give you an idea, civil penalties for a first violation of ADA compliance can cost as much as $92,000. Subsequent violations carry higher penalties, with costs rising up to approximately $184,000.

That’s why WordPress ADA compliance is a must. On top of helping you avoid legal costs, high accessibility standards also translate to a better user experience for all of your visitors.

New to web accessibility compliance?

Qualify for financial assistance for accessibility compliance

The IRS provides a Disabled Access Credit option that can help you cover the costs of ensuring that your WordPress website meets accessibility standards. Depending on your situation, you may be eligible for a tax deduction of up to $15,000 per year.