What Is ADA & WCAG Compliance? 3 Free Options For Accessibility Solutions

Website accessibility is more important than ever, especially with the new ADA and WCAG compliance regulations.

If your website is not up to date with these web features, it might suffer when it comes to traffic, SEO, and more.

Suppose you want a quick and easy ADA & WCAG compliance solution. In that case, your best bet is to start using an accessibility plugin that will scan your website and offer you the necessary fixes and recommendations.

These accessibility plugins are easy to use and user-friendly, but first, let’s see what ADA website compliance and WCAG website compliance mean and why they are crucial for your website.

ADA Website Compliance

ADA compliance stands for Americans With Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design.

These compliance standards were first implemented in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Justice to enable organizations to become more accessible to people with specific disabilities.

Its purpose is to make all organizations more inclusive to disabled people that regularly use computers or other smart devices.

Though ADA compliance was instated in 2010, it has become more mandatory over the years. For example, there are hundreds of millions of people who are visually impaired, and this is just one type of disability out of many others which affect a greater mass of people. 

ADA compliance applies to all businesses and web developers. However, even if your website doesn’t need to be ADA-compliant, it will still help in your SEO efforts and other traffic aspects of your website and user experience. 

Suppose your website is a business, state, or local organization. If it is, and especially if you are working for the public’s benefit and your website isn’t ADA compliant, you might face a hefty lawsuit.

You can expect to pay legal fees, settlement issues, lose customers, and damage your business’s reputation, not to mention that you will need to rebuild your website to be ADA-compliant.

To become ADA-compliant, you need to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Understanding WCAG

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, currently WCAG 2.1, are among the most critical protocols that influence web accessibility policies and were created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

It was meant to ensure that web protocols were standardized so as to allow websites and tools to be compatible. To become WCAG compliant, there are four principles that you should understand:

1.) Be Perceivable 

This aspect refers to how web users perceive online content by their sense of sound, sight, and touch. For example, you want your website to be easy to read by anyone.

One way to do that is by making it easier for your visitors to adjust contrast, text size, fonts, spacing, implement video captions, and similar factors. 

2.) Operability 

How someone can navigate your site is also a WCAG principle. For example, some of your visitors might have injured limbs, weak muscles, or motor disabilities.

To abide by the operability principle, you must ensure that your website can be operatable through keyboard navigation, sight-assistance navigation, and other means that can replace mouse maneuverability.

3.) Understandable 

Websites need to be easy for everyone to understand. This principle refers to making it easier for users to understand your content by not using too many technical terms or jargon, by providing your visitors with consistent navigation directions that won’t confuse them, or by forcing complicated instructions unto their user experience.

4.) Robustness

The last WCAG principle is to have a robust site, which means using clean HTML or CSS code that meets recognized standards and having assisting tools that are compatible with those used by disabled people to browse the web.

To make your website ADA and WCAG-compliant, you can use free accessibility WordPress plugins to get accustomed and then move on to a premium accessibility plugin that will boost your website’s audience, reach, leads, and revenue. Here are 3 free accessibility solutions:

AudioEye

AudioEye comes with a 7-day free trial to let you know exactly how your website stands in regard to accessibility.

It rates your accessibility score from 0 to 100. It will take care of most of your accessibility issues automatically, allowing your website visitors to improve their viewing experience through visual focus, color contrast, and more.

EqualWeb

EqualWeb is a free web accessibility plugin that can help your website remain WCAG and AD compliant, and it can also help you become compliant with Section 508, IS 5568, and EN 301549. It uses AI to scan and recognize any issues with your website’s accessibility.

Accessibility Spark

Accessibility Spark offers a 5-day free trial in which you can scan your website and make essential adjustments in regard to accessibility.

It can take care of your videos, widgets, content, and more. If you want to know if your website can get you into legal troubles with ADA, WCAG, or Section 508, Accessibility Spark is the way to go.