ADA compliance, What it means with regards to your Shopify or Shopify Plus store
ADA stands for Americans with Disabilities Act and the compliance is for any electronic information and technologies such as websites to have an accessible design.
Since 2010, the US Department of Justice has required online merchants to follow specific guidelines that make sites accessible. This is so anyone using a computer or smart device, especially those with disabilities, are included and can freely access stores online.
Do you need to be ADA compliant?
Yes, ADA compliance applies to virtually all businesses as it encompasses all electronic information and technology. The people who built your website or theme or even the apps you use are not responsible. Your business is.
If you find yourself not meeting the ADA compliance standards, even unintentionally, you are at risk of a hefty lawsuit and cost to your business. The costs involved can grow, not only with legal and PR fees but also the cost of having your website rebuilt. There is also the loss of customers who are unable to access your current site if it is not meeting the standards.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2010 there were over 56 million people with disabilities—which means there are a lot of customers potentially being turned away from sites due to a lack of accessibility.
The WCAG guidelines and ADA Compliance Standards
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG (view here) for short is a great place to find guidance on how to make websites accessible. Companies can begin auditing their own website and software based on WCAG compliance. The primary focus of WCAG is the HTML accessibility on all platforms.
Although ADA stipulates the guidelines on accessibility, the WCAG gives guidance on how to improve and make sites accessible.
The WCAG guidelines
The WCAG has a three-tiered grading system:
Level A: Website is only accessible by some
Level AA: Website is accessible by almost all
Level AAA: Website is accessible by all
It is ok to meet level AA compliance standards, however it is always recommended to build or rebuild your site to be 100% compliant.
Some principles of the WCAG guidelines include:
1. Be perceivable by offering alternative media formats on your website, so that users can perceive any and all information. This content includes text, images, videos etc. An example is if your users can’t see, there should be an alternative option for audible text.
2. Be operable by allowing users to easily navigate your website. This may be something that has to be written into your site’s HTML, which is best done by an experienced web developer who is up to date with the ADA compliance standards. Contact us to help!
3. Be understandable through providing instructions that come with the navigation menu, forms or any other feature that your site offers. Customers need to understand what they are reading, listening to or watching.
4. Be robust and universal. No matter if a user is disabled, uses support assisted technologies, or is non-disabled, the overall experience should remain the same. Avoid shortening descriptions, directions or explanations, simply provide everyone with a full user experience.
Experienced Shopify experts, on hand to help
Need help becoming ADA compliant on Shopify or Shopify Plus?
For those that are currently not meeting the ADA compliance standards it can sometimes mean a complete site overhaul to ensure the accessible alternatives are built into your site’s HTML coding.
This can be costly and tedious but extremely necessary. ADA standards are a great way to ensure that your site is inclusive to all, which in turn brings more business and a better reputation. If you need assistance our team of experts are on hand.
Our team of experienced Shopify developers & Shopify Plus developers and our partnered ADA compliance experts are able to perform a site audit and implement everything to meet the ADA specifications. We have done this for several multi million dollar stores in the US, one of which was facing legal action over non compliance.
Often the changes are quite simple like missing alt text, labels or elements which can’t be read by machines, or visual changes to do with the contrast and coloring of the site. We have also implemented additional tools to help with compliance.
Contact us today – your Shopify Experts
If you need assistance with getting your site up to ADA standard, or alternatively are in need of development to meet other compliance standards get in touch with our team of dedicated experts today.
