People spend a lot of time on the internet. Considering this fact, businesses and organizations have moved online. Having a website for your business despite its size is very crucial. The greatest mistake many businesses are doing is the failure to involve a web accessibility consultant when developing their sites. A consultant provides guidelines on how to make your website ADA compliant.

Why Is Web Accessibility Important?

Whether you are coming up with a new website, an application or you are redesigning an existing one, you should ensure that the final product conforms to WCAG 2.1 standards. Ignoring web accessibility is like designing a tall building without an elevator. How will people who cannot use staircases access the higher floors? What would happen to people who do use wheelchairs? This will be discriminating against people on the basis of their disabilities. Now, society is progressively becoming more aware of the importance of designing accessible spaces - both physical and digital ones. ADA standards enforce that websites should be developed in a way that people with disabilities can comfortably access them.

Why accessibility consultant?

Working with accessibility consultants will not only ensure that your website is ADA compliant but will also offer guidance through possible challenges, and bring out probable drawbacks. They will also guide you through a long-term vision of your website to ensure you stay compliant and continue accommodating every kind of user. If your website does not conform to ADA standards, you are missing out on valuable customers. By having a web accessibility consultant you will be welcoming them to your business.

Make your existing website compliant

Well, you could be having a website with accessibility that is limited to people without disabilities. Wondering how to make it more accessible? Are you wondering how to make your website ADA compliant? Well, the best decision would be to upgrade it. Upgrading a website to make it more accessible would be a great investment.

The consulting team will analyze your website’s traffic; evaluate the consumer behavior to ensure that everything is designed to increase accessibility and user engagement. The team will also ensure that the website optimization is tailored towards meeting every user's needs including those living with disabilities.
Benefits of Hiring Web Accessibility Consultant
They will help you stay safe from unnecessary court cases
They help you have a website that complies with ADA
They help you increase turnover
Consultants improve your ability to market your products and services.
They help prevent potential errors in the design process.
They help you re-adjust your website accessibility during the redesign process.

Principles of Web Accessibility Standards

The accessibility standards focus on four design principles which are: robust, perceivable, operable, and understandable. Perceivable means that the user interfaces and the contents of the website must be well turned-out to users in such a way that they can perceive. This means that it should be visible to all their senses - hearing, touch, sight, etc. To achieve perception, alternatives for non-textual content should be used; content that can be represented in multiple ways such as assistive technology should be included. The content should be visible to the physical eye and also heard (text-audio conversion features should be added to the website).

Operability means that your website is made in a way that users can interact and operate the interface. The user interface must not contain features that the user cannot operate or perform. This is how to make your website ADA compliant through the operability principle. Give the website users sufficient time to use content, avoid content that can harm users, and create assistive features to help users navigate the site and find the right content.

The understandability principle asserts that the user interface operation and web information must be explicable. Developers who factor in this principle develop websites that fully comprehend the content operation of the website. They do this by creating understandable text, create ways for users to predict how content appears and operate and establish features to allow users to correct their mistakes while interacting with the system.

Author's Bio: 

I am a computer science professor. Being a tech enthusiast I keep close tabs on trends and will be glad to share and discuss the latest wrapups in the field with the community.