Jan 17, 2018
The Department of Justice (DOJ) published the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design in September 2010. These standards state that all electronic and information technology must be accessible to people with disabilities.
The Storage Group is dedicated to making sure that all of our websites are Level A ADA Compliant. Recently, we’ve completed the retrofitting all of our current themes to add ADA Compliant features. We are also currently building new themes that will satisfy Level AAA, the top of the line ADA compliance standards. These updated themes will also feature faster load times and SEO benefits, as well.
The ADA standards apply to commercial and public entities that have “places of public accommodation” which includes the internet.
There are four principles involved in ADA storage website compliance.
The first is being perceivable, which means providing text alternatives for non-text content, providing captions and other alternatives for multimedia, creating content that can be presented in different ways, and making it easier for users to see and hear content.
The second principle is being operable, which includes making all functionality available from a keyboard, giving users enough time to read and use content, not using content that might cause seizures, and helping users navigate and find content.
The third principle is making a website understandable, which means making text readable and understandable, making content appear and operate in predictable ways, and helping users avoid and correct mistakes.
The last principle is being robust, which simply means maximizing the compatibility of a website with current and future user tools.
There are also three levels of conformance that go along with ADA Compliance: A, AA, and AAA.
Level A provides the least benefit to impaired users and conformity isn’t necessarily difficult. This level focuses on making it easier to navigate and translate sites, mostly for browser readers. This is usually an improvement for most sites but it doesn’t make the site as accessible as the DOJ would prefer.
Level AA makes sites accessible to people with a wider range of disabilities, including the most common barriers to use. While this level doesn’t impact the look and feel of the site as much as the next level, it does include guidance on color contrast and error identification. In general, most businesses should be aiming for Level AA, which is what the DOJ expects.
Level AAA, the most demanding level of accessibility compliance, will significantly affect the design of the site, but also makes the website accessible to the widest range of people with disabilities.
To find out more about ADA storage website compliance, please reach out to Jill Baker, Director of Sales, at (720) 218-1196 and jbaker@storagegroupinc.com.