Accessibility guide for businesses: Best practices for compliance in-person and online

No matter your market, improving access for your customers should be a top priority for your business. You want people to not only find your business, but also easily navigate your products and services, find what they are looking for, and have a generally positive experience from beginning to end. That’s just basic customer service, but it also involves accessibility.

Accessibility means equal opportunity for everyone, including people with disabilities. According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a disability is any “physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” These could be difficulties with movements like walking or motor function, sensory systems like vision or hearing, or cognitive functions like learning and concentrating.

The CDC reports that 26% (about one in four) of adults in the United States have some sort of disability. When you consider those numbers, accessibility becomes even more important from a business standpoint.

Most people think of accessibility in terms of the physical space, like parking spaces and wheelchair ramps. That makes sense considering the visibility of these accommodations, and also the fact that 13.7% of adults in America have an impairment involving mobility, according to the same report by the CDC.

The digital space demands accessibility as well, due to the prevalence of electronic communications in everyday life. Many types of impairments may affect a person’s ability to interact with the internet, making accessibility a major concern. Web accessibility means equal opportunity for information, goods, and services provided online.

Regardless of legal issues that could arise from non-compliance, accessibility is simply a smart decision for any business interested in better service and a deeper understanding of its customers.

Federal accessibility standards

To ensure accessibility in all areas of life, various laws and guidelines have been established by the United States as well as other countries and international organizations. Wherever your business operates, it pays to know the requirements and best practices for maintaining accessibility. This will help improve your customer experience, achieve compliance with regulations, and promote an equitable environment for all.

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)

As a civil rights law that’s been around for decades, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is already familiar to many people, especially anyone in service or retail. The legislation prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. It applies to all state and local governments as well as “public accommodations” as defined by the law, which include most businesses open to the public. As a federal law of the United States administered by the Department of Justice (DOJ), the ADA applies only within the U.S., but similar regulations exist in other countries as well.

In its original language, the ADA deals explicitly with physical locations and in-person interactions, but the DOJ has determined that web content must be accessible as well. The department states, “Requirements apply to all the goods, services, privileges, or activities offered by public accommodations, including those offered on the web.” Thus, a business can face lawsuits and penalties for discrimination against people with disabilities, whether in-person or online.

Section 508

Additional to the ADA is Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This law relates specifically to information and communication technology (ICT), mandating that all federal agencies use technology that is accessible to people with disabilities.

A related law, Section 504, extends to any organizations that receive federal funding or assistance. So while these laws do not apply directly to the private sector, any company that provides ICT services in the United States should be familiar with Section 508 and 504 regulations.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

While Section 508 does include standards for government organizations to follow, the ADA does not codify its own standards for web accessibility pertaining to public accommodations. Instead, the DOJ recommends that all websites meet either the Section 508 standards or an international standard called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are maintained by the nongovernmental World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The WCAG is considered the gold standard for web accessibility worldwide, so proper conformance can help achieve global scalability in design for your business.

ADA compliance for business

The ADA statute is broad in scope, advancing opportunities for people with disabilities in nearly all areas of life. Almost any business that provides goods or services to the American public, regardless of employee numbers or age of infrastructure, is subject to regulations of the ADA. Even facilities such as offices, factories, or warehouses that do not directly serve the public must comply with architectural standards laid out by the ADA.

In addition to the requirements for buildings, however, the law mandates nondiscriminatory practices for all public accommodations (businesses and nonprofits open to the public). Therefore, any company that operates in the United States should strive to ensure equitable access in all aspects of their business.

Accessible company policies and communication

No matter where you conduct your business, whether in person or online, the first step in accessibility is establishing a culture of inclusion. Every customer-facing aspect should be prepared with accommodations for people with disabilities. This includes employees and physical spaces as well as the digital front.

In all areas, proactive and ongoing attention is key to improving customer experience and avoiding compliance problems. Here are some actionable tips for promoting accessibility in the workplace:

• Develop company-wide policies and practices based on ADA regulations.
• Train all staff on ADA compliance and implementation.
• Encourage transparent communication and feedback, both internally and externally, about customer service and accessibility.
• Be prepared to modify any existing physical space for accessibility, and always build new facilities with accessibility in mind.
• In any electronic communications and services, design for accessibility from the beginning, rather than trying to deliver later.
• All staff should be prepared and willing to provide extra accommodations, within reason, to anyone who requires them.

ADA accessibility for physical locations

If your business serves any brick-and-mortar location open to the public in the U.S., then it’s likely subject to ADA regulations. To achieve compliance, best practices involve altering the physical space for mobility aids such as wheelchairs, and also modifying communication methods for customers with hearing, visual, or speech impairments.

The ADA requires the removal of physical and communication barriers whenever it is “readily achievable” to do so, meaning without exorbitant difficulty or expense:

• Remove barriers whenever readily achievable, first prioritizing entrances and exits, followed by goods and services, then restrooms and other facilities.
• If barrier removal is not possible, provide alternatives such as curbside service, for example.
• Plan for other forms of communication, such as exchanging written notes with a customer or allowing for an interpreter.
• Offer additional assistance or modifications when reasonable, such as helping a customer reach items on a high shelf, or reading a menu out loud.
• Designate accessible spaces in any parking lot.
• Review ADA regulations when planning any construction, as new buildings may be subject to tighter standards than existing ones.

ADA accessibility for websites

Much like brick-and-mortar stores are considered public accommodations under the ADA, so too are websites that provide goods, services, or simply information to the American public. Web accessibility is often overlooked, however, and ADA guidance is less clear when it comes to online presence.

Luckily, the WCAG and related frameworks exist to guide improvements to usability. Just as ADA guidelines focus on removing barriers and providing alternatives within the physical space, WCAG strives to remove barriers and provide alternatives on the internet. Its many layers of guidance are all built on four fundamental accessibility principles, as outlined by the Web Accessibility Initiative. Learning these is the starting point for any business seeking to understand accessible web design.

• Perceivable: The information should be presentable in more than one way, allowing for equivalent text descriptions of non-text content. Examples are descriptions of images, closed captioning on videos, and explanations of charts or diagrams.
• Operable: The user should be able to access the interface in more than one way, such as with a mouse and keyboard navigation. Additionally, the content should allow sufficient user controls like the ability to navigate, scroll, pause, mute, and close.
• Understandable: The content and presentation should be clear to the broadest possible range of people. This includes readability concerns like text size and color contrast, and also navigability concerns like button size, descriptive link text, and a predictable interface.
• Robust: The content should be compatible with multiple platforms and devices, and should continue to work with evolving technology. This may mean creating alternative versions with standard markup.

By adhering to these four principles of accessibility, a website can not only improve its service to customers with disabilities, but also enhance the user experience overall.

How accessible UX design benefits business

Whether your business operates online or off (or both, which is common), reaching and retaining relevant customers should be a core focus of your marketing, and user experience (UX) is crucial for conversion. Though you will eventually want to optimize multiple aspects of UX, you must start with foundations for broadly accessible content.

Considering the fact that one in four adults live with some impairment, you risk excluding a lot of potential customers without accessible design. What’s more, any site that is accessible to people with disabilities will also be generally user-friendly, SEO-friendly, and secure.

As noted by the W3C, “Accessibility overlaps with other best practices such as mobile web design, device independence, multi-modal interaction, usability, design for older users, and search engine optimization (SEO). Case studies show that accessible websites have better search results, reduced maintenance costs, and increased audience reach, among other benefits.”

The bottom line is, almost any improvement you make to accessibility will enhance the overall quality of your website, and therefore be good for business. If your company is looking to improve marketing ROI, don’t overlook the potential of UX improvements for your owned channels.

Best practices for web accessibility

When developing any website or application, it is always best to implement accessibility from the beginning, rather than try to overlay it at another time. If you build for inclusion, you will not only save yourself a design headache later on, but will likely avoid any regulatory complications. Also, remember that accessible design is user- and SEO-friendly design. The same principles apply when you’re designing email strategy or social media campaigns to maximize audience engagement and retention.

Accessibility becomes especially important, but more technically demanding, with regard to advanced applications and handling of user data. Consider any form of consent management for analyzing customer behavior. In such situations, under-serving people with disabilities could lead to more regulatory trouble beyond ADA noncompliance, but you don’t want to lose out on valuable customer information, either.

Luckily, technical resources are available from the W3C to inform the development of rich internet applications and other programs. Some of these guides are referenced below, but when discussing best practices for accessibility, it’s useful to start with an overview of alternative ways in which people with disabilities might use the web.

Assistive technologies for accessing the web

While the internet can, in theory, be much easier to access than a physical location, significant physical and communication barriers still exist. A variety of assistive technologies can help people with disabilities overcome these barriers.

Some examples are quite simple and familiar to most people, such as closed captioning and text magnification. However, more advanced solutions can accommodate a broader range of abilities. To create an accessible user experience, it’s useful to know about some of these technologies. According to the W3C, common types of tools are:

• Adaptive keyboard and mouse devices work much like their standard counterparts, but with an expanded or altered structure to accommodate people with motor impairments.
• Alternative input devices come in a variety of forms, but essentially these are anything other than a mouse, keyboard, or touchscreen that’s used to command a computer. Some examples are voice recognition, footswitches, mouth switches, and eye-tracking systems.
• Reading assistants are programs that can automatically change a display to make it more visible, such as by magnifying, altering contrast, and/or highlighting parts of the page.
• Screen readers convert webpages using text-to-speech or Braille, and typically provide alternative or shortcut forms of input as well.

Technical considerations

While it is possible to design for accessibility in any computer language, some assistive technologies employ application programming interfaces (APIs) that benefit from standardized markup. Thus, W3C has developed the Accessible Rich Internet Applications suite (WAI-ARIA), a set of technical specifications for web authors to use in making advanced applications more accessible.

Implementation of WAI-ARIA is not required for WCAG conformance, however, and most websites can use basic code to achieve an acceptable degree of accessibility. Keeping the four principles of POUR (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust) in mind, some particular elements to include are:

• Text alternatives for any non-text content, such as alt text for images;
• Correct and consistent markup for page elements like headings, lists, and tables;
• Descriptive identifiers for any buttons, input fields, and other controls;
• Web forms that are clear, reviewable, and reversible, helping users to correct mistakes;
• Navigation structure that is clear and predictable;
• Primary language of a webpage identified in metadata;
• Responsive design to work on a variety of devices;
• HTML version of any advanced applications.

Text and graphics

In addition to the technical considerations that go into any webpage, the page design is equally important for accessibility. All content should be designed for intuitive structure and visual clarity. This will benefit every user of a website, not just those with disabilities.

• Sufficient color clarity and contrast;
• Color is not used as any sole indication of meaning;
• Clearly readable headers, body, and link text;
• Proper punctuation within paragraphs and list items;
• Sufficient size and contrast of images;
• Reasonable spacing between page elements;
• Minimal distracting effects like flashing icons or images.

Audio and video

Although audio and video are valuable forms of communication online, they should not be the only means of conveying essential information. Accessible content must provide text alternatives, while also displaying the media as clearly and adaptively as possible. Again, these considerations will benefit all users and a range of devices.

• Captions or other alternatives for any multimedia content;
• Ample time to read and use content;
• Sufficient clarity and contrast within both visuals and audio;
• Intuitive controls for play, pause, stop, rewind, fast-forward;
• Ability to close or opt-out of autoplay features;
• Responsive sizing and resolution to display on a variety of devices.

Resources for businesses

Many resources are available to help business owners and managers with ADA compliance and best practices. In addition to information on in-person accessibility, you can find guidelines as well as testing services for web accessibility.

• ADA.gov: Here the U.S. Department of Justice provides an introduction to the Americans with Disabilities Act, including examples of the people and organizations to whom it applies.
• Guide to the ADA Accessibility Standards: This resource from the U.S. Access Board provides detailed and illustrated instructions for complying with ADA standards
• ADA Business Connection: This section of ADA.gov contains the technical and legal documents of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
• Section508.gov: This site is all about Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, and includes useful resources for government agencies and contractors.
• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): This site presents an introduction to web accessibility from W3C, the international standards organization that publishes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
• Digital.gov: This official U.S. government website provides guidance on how to test websites for accessibility.
• Deque axe: Deque is one company that specializes in accessibility tools and software, providing a range of products and training.

Resources for developers

These resources are more specific to web authors creating accessible sites and applications. Here you will find detailed standards, technical specifications, and toolkits specific to web accessibility.

• W3C Accessibility Principles: This resource from the W3C provides a starting point for developers to gain familiarity with web accessibility.
• Section 508 Laws and Policies: Section508.gov presents the technical standards and legal language related to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.
• 18F Accessibility Guide: An official resource from the U.S. government, this site provides guidance about web accessibility, concerning both Section 508 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
• WCAG 2 Overview: This resource from W3C contains the full text of WCAG standards as well as supplementary information.
• WAI-ARIA Overview: This page, also from W3C, provides access to the Accessible Rich Internet Applications suite of web standards for WCAG conformance.
• WebAIM: The nonprofit organization WebAIM offers training, evaluation, and certification for web accessibility.