{"id":16582,"date":"2019-08-20T10:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T17:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogsitestudio.com\/?p=16582"},"modified":"2020-02-06T11:37:09","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T19:37:09","slug":"making-your-wordpress-website-accessible-is-a-ramp-to-higher-traffic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogsitestudio.com\/making-your-wordpress-website-accessible-is-a-ramp-to-higher-traffic\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Your WordPress Website Accessible is a Ramp to Higher Traffic"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was applied to physical spaces, such as requiring publicly available buildings to have wheelchair ramps and wheelchair accessible bathrooms.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Soon, advocates for the disabled began to sue businesses that failed to provide ADA accommodations for noncompliance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Because Title lll of ADA requires effective communication pertaining to accessibly electronic information technology, that same litigious impulse has reached The Internet, and businesses with non-compliant websites are feeling the pinch.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Businesses Under Attack<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In a May 14 webinar, called ADA Web Compliance<\/strong>, presented by Seyfarth Shaw LLP. and sponsored by <\/a>WineAmerica<\/a>, we learned how American business are being targeted in Title lll lawsuits.<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

They told us that in 2018, 1564 ADA on the Web-related lawsuits were brought in New York state alone, 576 in Florida.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

California, which offers statuary damages to plaintiffs in addition to inductive relief, attorneys fees, and costs, had only 10 cases.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

ADA Web Compliance is Good for Business<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There\u2019s a small but possible chance that having a non-ADA compliant website will expose your business to litigation.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But lawsuits aside, there is a larger case for making your website accessible to the 1 billion people on earth who have some kind of disability.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Sales<\/strong>!<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When you make your website accessible, it gets more traffic and more potential customers, which translates into more sales. When you think about its benefits, you see that accessibility is just good business.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

How to Make your Website Accessible and ADA compliant<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Disabled people come in all forms. They might have reduced or no vision, hearing, or motor skills, or they have photosensitive seizures, and cognitive impairment.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

For the most part, achieving ADA Web Compliance is the same as following the best practices for web design in general. If you have been using best practices, you have already done most of the work towards accessibility.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Much of the techniques have been available all this time but for one reason or another, web designers and users have been slow to take advantage.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

That inertia must end. Start by using this tool<\/a> to scan your site for accessibility issues.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Be Keyboard Friendly<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

For people with mobility issues, it can be hard to use the touchpad or a mouse to move through a site. And because assistive technologies such as browsers rely on keyboard-only navigation, using the keyboard is their lifeline.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This means all the elements on a web page should be accessible by pressing the tab button. For the Tab button to work this way your elements – links, buttons, and form controls – must have keyboard “focus.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In WordPress you can use a plugin to help.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Make Content Easily Accessible<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

For the disabled, issues with content can arise if the content is dynamic. In other words, if it can change without the page reloading.\u00a0Screen readers don\u2019t always catch the changes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The suggested way to work with dynamic content is to use ARIA landmarks. ARIA landmarks are attributes you can add to elements in your page to define areas like the main content or a navigation region.\u00a0By tagging\u00a0dynamic content<\/a>\u00a0as a \u2018live region,\u2019 screen readers will better understand the content as it changes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n