ADA guidelines are incredbily difficult to wrap your head around, but ignore them at your peril.
First of all, we are NOT an ADA fixer, but we do have some suggestions of how you can be less of a target for the people who feel it's okay to make ADA lawsuits a personal income stream.
Unless you built your website with ADA compliance in mind from the ground up, it's tough to get all the ducks in a row. BUT...the goal in this sharing is to make you less of a target for the unscrupulous, and yes, they are out there looking for the obvious. Here are several of the ones you can "fix".
- Missing Video Closed Captions
- Poor Color Contrast
- Embedded Vendor Video with Missing Closed Captions
- Missing alt text for images
- ADA "Fix It" Widgets
Missing Closed Captions
Many practices use Youtube as their video host. YouTube DOES auto caption video, but it's done my machine and if it's incorrectly transcribed, the buck stops at your doorstep, not theirs. Suggestion: Review ALL your Youtube videos that are embedded on your site. If they aren't correct, fix them. You can do this manually or thru a captioning service.
Poor Color Contrast
The rule is 4.5 to 1. If your text is too light, you're going to have to fix it. If your background is too close to your text color, you're going to have to fix it. **MANY site designers are not aware of this issue.
Embedded Vendor Video missing closed captions
You'd think the big brands who make those wonderful videos for you to use in your marketing would be "up" on the ADA requirements. They often ARE NOT.
Preview the full video before you use the embed code or download to self host. If it's an embed code and there's no closed captions, don't use it. If it's missing closed captions and you can download and self-host, then pay for the transcribing and include the .srt files on your own (or don't use it).
Youtube will auto transcribe and add closed captions. Review the final captions and correct them. Youtube uses AI and is not always correct for the brand names you may use. It can get embarrassing if you aren't careful.
Missing Alt Text
Alt text is the description of your images. It's not required for purely decorative images, but if an image is integral to your content, describe it.
ADA Fix It Widgets
Use with caution. Some actually get in the way of screen readers and CREATE a problem. Don't expect the widget to solve the problem of missing closed captions or missing alt text for images. Most will impact the speed of your site on mobile.