In a nutshell, online ADA compliance is about making a website usable for anyone that visits a website. In this day and age, this is a crucial aspect for any website. Failing to meet such compliance may result in legal consequences. The result, assuming ADA compliance is ignored, may be lawsuits resulting in substantial fines.
In the simplest terms, color contrast is ensuring that text can be easily read against the background color it sits upon. As an example, if the background is of a dark color, the text color must be light.
As specified by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), buttons should be perceivable, operable, and understandable. This means they need to be clearly visible and easy to use. They should include elements such as appropriate color contrast, readable fonts, and high touch targets.
Alternative text is a textual description applied to an image. Screen readers use this information to describe an image to a screen reader user. There's been a lot of debate as to how detailed alternative text should be. However, there are no set standards. Play it safe and attempt to describe an image as best as possible.
The statistics of hearing loss are staggering. At the time of this writing, August 26th, 2024, it is estimated that 5% of the world's population suffers from some form of hearing loss. As such, captions on any type of online video content is a must. YouTube, among other video resources, embraces this concept by giving content creators the ability to generate AI based captions.
Forms on any website are often overlooked when it comes to ADA Compliance. In truth, it does not take a lot of effort to make a form ADA compliant. Labels need to have an appropriate tag that corresponds to their respective input field. Form fields should be tabable, or able to be focused with a keyboard.
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