Making Your Website More Accessible: What ADA Compliance Means for Your Business

A website should be a place where everyone can find information, interact with your business, and access the services you provide. But for someone using a screen reader, navigating entirely by keyboard, or relying on captions to understand a video, a website that works well for one visitor may create significant barriers for another.

At Intellicom, we help businesses identify and address accessibility issues on their websites so they can create a more inclusive digital experience. Accessibility is not simply about checking a box—it’s about making sure your website can be used by as many people as possible.

What Is Web Accessibility?

Web accessibility means designing and developing websites so people with disabilities can perceive, navigate, understand, and interact with the content.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), provide widely used technical guidance for making websites accessible. WCAG organizes accessibility around four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

In practice, that can include things such as:

• Providing meaningful alternative text for images
• Making website functionality accessible using a keyboard
• Providing captions or alternatives for multimedia
• Using appropriate color contrast
• Creating clear headings and navigation
• Making forms easier to understand and complete
• Ensuring content works with screen readers and other assistive technologies
• Using properly structured HTML and other accessible web components

These improvements can benefit people with a wide range of disabilities, including blindness or low vision, deafness or hearing loss, limited mobility, and cognitive or learning disabilities.

ADA and Website Accessibility

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities. While the specific legal requirements can depend on the type of organization and situation, web accessibility has become an increasingly important consideration for organizations that provide services and information online and wants its digital presence to be welcoming and usable by people with disabilities.

Accessibility Is an Ongoing Process

One of the biggest misconceptions about website accessibility is that it is something you fix once and never have to think about again.

Websites are constantly changing. New pages are added, images are uploaded, forms are modified, modules and plugins are updated, and content is replaced. Any of these changes can introduce new accessibility issues.

That’s why ongoing monitoring can be just as important as making the initial improvements.

At Intellicom, we can perform periodic accessibility scans to help identify potential issues and areas that may need attention. Our web team can then help make the necessary adjustments to keep your website moving toward a more accessible experience.

Accessibility Benefits Everyone

Making your website more accessible isn't only about supporting visitors who use assistive technologies. Many accessibility practices can improve the overall experience for everyone.

Clear navigation can make it easier for any visitor to find information. Captions can be useful when someone is watching a video without sound. Descriptive links can help users quickly understand where a link will take them. Well-structured content can make a page easier to read on both a desktop computer and a mobile device.

In other words, an accessible website is often simply a better website.

Build a Website Everyone Can Use

Your website represents your organization online, and everyone should have the opportunity to interact with it. Whether your website needs a few accessibility adjustments or a more comprehensive review, taking steps toward better accessibility can create a more inclusive experience for your visitors.

Accessibility isn't a one-time project. It's an ongoing commitment to making your digital presence more inclusive, usable, and welcoming to everyone.

Note: Website accessibility requirements can vary based on an organization's type, services, and applicable laws. An accessibility review is not a substitute for legal advice or a legal determination of ADA compliance.