ADA Compliance

What businesses should concern themselves over the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding to websites?

In recent years, the Americans with Disabilities Act has been updated to include website and web searching. This means it’s a website owner’s responsibility to know about these standards and to make the personal decision to consider these adjustments. I highly recommend every business and individual who has a website to review ALL information regarding this. Unfortunately there is no simple list of what is required but the government website for the Act has all the information here: https://www.ada.gov/

GCJ Productions has researched and compiled a list of updates that should alleviate most situations that could occur. Our advice is to have these updates to accommodate as many visitors to help decrease the chances of someone claiming a website is being discriminate. We do not present ourselves as experts within the Act’s guidelines but an advisor on getting important adjustments to the website that falls within the guidelines presented by the Act.

Is this covered in a GCJ Productions standard web design? Should I as a business get this update?

Because these updates to the Americans with Disabilities Act have been an ongoing process throughout the years, GCJ Productions does not include these pieces as part of our design process especially for any designs in retrospect. For future designs, we are actively figuring out the best way to include it within our design process without sacrificing our competitive rates. As of 2022, this service is an optional item left in the hands of the website owner to determine if they want these updates.

No matter what, you as the website owner must decide if you want to take the risk of not being compliant. It’s not mandatory and it does not benefit you in any other category as we know of (rankings, seo, web presence, etc.).

Recommended ADA compliant and accessibility updates to your website:

1. Adding alternative text to all photos. This allows someone who hovers over a photo to have text appear explaining photo or saying what the photo is. This also helps in screen reading functions.
2. Adding alternative text to hyperlinks (this is not for all links but only for links that fail the ADA compliance tests. These links tend to be external type of links like Facebook). This allows certain links to have text to appear in a small box describing it’s purpose or direction.
3. Installing a website translator for language. Offering a one click solution at the top or bottom of the website to translate into: English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Portugese and Spanish (There are more available I can add at your request, no extra charge). The benefit to this is that it’s one click and instant.
4. Form labels for screen readers. Browsers and mobile devices now have a function for screen reading a loud. I will need to add additional code to each label in your contact form so it can be read aloud by mobile devices.

Understanding what this update means in regards to being ADA compliant:

Despite our research, there is no way of knowing if you could pass a complete ADA compliance test. This is because an indepth test can range from $3000 – $50k as this a federal govern entity doing this audit. However, they have released the most important items that help a vast majority of individuals who may need additional resources to view your website. Because of all these factors, we do not guarantee that these updates will prevent anyone from pursuing any legal action saying the website was not built to accommodate someone. GCJ Productions holds no responsibility for any website built to pass any ADA compliance test. We do offer this service to help decrease your chances of any issues occurring within that area. We consider these updates to be a new minimum standard that websites should have to effectively offer their information to as wide of an audience as possible. As well as being accommodating to as many people within their means.

A wonderful website that expands and explains even further the benefit to making your website more compliant: https://webaim.org/ This website also has a tool that allows you to do soft level assessment to your website. The updates we offer, helps you pass this test or at least pass with a high grade depending on any limitations to your coding. These could be factors outside of our control such as third party integrations.