-----Original Message-----
From: DBTAC - Great Lakes ADA Information
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robin Jones
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 1:12 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Article: ADA Regulations: How to Get Your Website in
Compliance
The following article is forwarded to you by the Great Lakes ADA
Center
(www.adagreatlakes.org) for your information:
HR.BLR.COM
December 09, 2011
ADA Regulations: How to Get Your Website in Compliance
Website accessibility isn't often the first thing that comes to
mind when
thinking of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA)
regulations. Yet to ensure your company's information is
accessible for
those that are vision and hearing impaired, this is exactly what
you need to
be thinking of.
Federal watchdogs recently announced plans to scrutinize employer
websites
to make sure they aren't violating accessibility standards for
the vision
and hearing impaired under new ADA regulations. This crackdown
makes it
absolutely necessary for HR to review all company websites for
ADA
compliance. How do you make your site web-accessible and stay in
line with
ADA regulations?
In a BLR webinar titled "Is Your Website ADA-Compliant?: How to
Prepare for
the Newest Enforcement Push," Jonathan R. Mook of DiMuroGinsberg
and Jon
Mires of the Center for Accessible Technology outlined some
guidance for
determining whether your website has accessibility problems and
some steps
you can take to overcome them and meet ADA requirements.
Does Your Website Meet ADA Requirements?
During the webinar, Mook noted that "as part of the
nondiscrimination
mandate of the ADA - particularly with respect to employers -
there is a
reasonable accommodation requirement for employers, and that
means that
employers need to make accommodations to individuals with
disabilities in
order to enable them to participate in the workplace. And this
can take
various forms that would affect the need for ensuring that your
websites and
computer communications are accessible to individuals."
How do you determine the level of accessibility of your site?
Here are some
questions to ask when checking to see if you are in line with ADA
regulations for accessibility:
* Can you navigate the site with the keyboard only? Can you
fill out
and submit forms without using a mouse?
* Do color contrast and text size look reasonable, even for
someone
who has low-vision? Can your mother/grandmother read the text?
* Does the link text make sense on its own (i.e. not "read
more" or
"click here") for users who utilize screen reading software to
navigate,
such as those who are blind?
* Do your videos have captions or transcripts for the hearing
impaired?
* Does the site rely on being able to distinguish colors?
Beyond the basics, there are also slightly more advanced things
you can
check, such as checking the alternate text of images. In the
webinar, Mires
noted: "almost every site uses images in some way, and that's one
of the
biggest barriers for blind users - is images that don't have text
equivalents." For images of text (which should be avoided if
possible),
alternate text should match the text in the image. For other
content images,
alternate text should provide a short description of the image.
For
decorative images, alternate text should be empty (that doesn't
mean
missing!).
For even more advanced issues, often you can seek professional
assistance to
help improve your compliance with ADA regulations. You can get
help with
things like:
* Evaluating the page structure. Structure pages so that they
make
sense to assistive technology. This has nothing to do with
visual
presentation and everything to do with code including the HTML
elements like
headings, lists, links, paragraphs, etc. This is very
straightforward for
any web developer who is familiar with web standards.
* Checking actual color contrast.
* Ensuring things like data tables and timed responses are
accessibly
implemented on your site or that there are alternatives available
to those
needing it, such as the ability to stop an automatic logout.
Benefits of Getting Your Website In Line with ADA Requirements
After undertaking these types of evaluations, most likely you
will find that
your site does have accessibility barriers that could mean it
does not meet
ADA requirements - nearly all sites do. However, you can almost
certainly
make large improvements with a modest amount of effort. Making
your site
more accessible is not just a cost or legal obligation. Benefits
include:
* Better usability for all visitors
* Usually bottom line metrics improve (time on site,
conversions,
completed tasks, etc.)
* Reputation improvement, and sometimes competitive advantage
* Potentially a huge market
Mires advised "the biggest complaint when we do focus groups
about web
accessibility - the number one complaint among all groups (so
this includes
blind users, keyboard-only users, people with low vision, people
with
learning disabilities, people with reading difficulties) . is
that
information is hard to find, poorly organized, or badly written,
or
completely missing, which actually is also the number one
complaint among
people without disabilities." Making adjustments for those with
disabilities
can improve the site for everyone.
*****************************************************************
***********
******************
The above information is excerpted in part from a BLR webinar
titled "Is
Your Website ADA-Compliant?: How to Prepare for the Newest
Enforcement
Push," with experts Jonathan R. Mook of DiMuroGinsberg and Jon
Mires of the
Center for Accessible Technology. For more information on ADA
requirements
as they relate to websites, order the webinar recording
<http://catalog.blr.com/product.cfm/product/30732715> .
Jonathan R. Mook is a founding partner in the firm of
DiMuroGinsberg
<http://www.dimuro.com/> and is a nationally recognized
authority on the
Americans with Disabilities Act. He has authored two published
treatises:
"Americans with Disabilities Act: Employee Rights and Employer
Obligations"
and "Americans with Disabilities Act: Public Accommodations and
Commercial
Facilities."
Jon Mires is a web developer focusing on usability and
accessibility at the
Center for Accessible Technology <http://www.cforat.org/> in
Berkeley,
California. He has helped a wide range of organizations
understand and
implement web accessibility principles, focusing on how to comply
with
standards and guidelines while maintaining focus on core users
and
technological capabilities.
Source:
http://hr.blr.com/HR-news/Discrimination/Disabilities-ADA/11zn-AD
A-Regulatio
ns-How-to-Get-Website-Compliance/?source=RSA&effort=4 (Long URL
and may
appear on more than one line in this message. Copy and paste
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browser)
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_______________________________________________
ATI (Adaptive Technology Inc.)
A special interest affiliate of the Missouri Council of the Blind
http://moblind.org/membership/affiliates/adaptive_technology
