What is ADA and What Does it Mean for My Website?

The ADA, or Americans with Disabilities Act, is a U.S. law enacted in 1990 that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including websites. For your website, this means ensuring that it is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.

How We Can Help

At FIS we build all websites following the WCAG 2.2/AA guidelines using various development, scanning, and screen reader tools.**

General Website Scan

We can audit your website for ADA Accessibility using a variety of testing tools* and manual review.

SortSite

For reporting, we use SortSite, an automated ADA accessibility checker and validator tool.*

New Websites

Your website will be scanned at go-live and you will be provided with a copy of the scan, showing that the website is clear of issues.

Annual Scan

You are entitled to one free scan per year, and may request another at any time for a fee.

Accessibility

What You Should Do to Maintain Conformance

While not a comprehensive list of all the guidelines, here is a good list to start with.

More Resources

  • Every image, video file, audio file, (unless decorative) should have Alternative Text describing the image to non-sighted visitors
  • Images should not have large amounts of embedded text – screen readers cannot read them! That leaves all the information in that image unavailable to many users.

  • The page should not contain repeatedly flashing images or scrolling text that cannot be paused.
  • Videos embedded in your website should have closed captions for deaf or hard-of-hearing visitors.
  • Animated elements like promo rotators must have a method for pausing or stopping movement.

  • Pay attention to color contrast. Light colors or white on top of other light colors may not be visible to all your users. The current guidelines require the minimum color contrast ratio for text and images of text to be 4.5:1.

  • Make sure links are obvious by using more than just color (for example, underlines when hovered over).
  • Ensure link text makes sense on its own. Ambiguous links like "Click Here" need a title that describes why the user is "clicking here."

  • Use a legible font size. If text is too small, it can be hard to see.
  • Use responsive font sizes so users can zoom in if necessary.
  • Use Headings for headings, not just bolded text. (And do not use Headings to style normal text.) The most common way to navigate with a screen reader is by “tabbing” through page headers. Users can jump between the different sections of your pages easily based on the way they are formatted. Just like in a Word document or PDF, your page will have a styled Heading 1 and various Heading 2’s or 3’s. Resist the urge to use that formatting on regular text as it will make it difficult for your users to navigate.

  • Ensure all files (including Acrobat PDF files) and the content within them are accessible to assistive technologies, or else an alternative means of accessing equivalent content is provided.
  • Include a method of skipping website navigation to assist those using screen readers. (Your website will likely have a "skip nav" built in for keyboard users, and you should also see a link to a Site Map in the footer).

Although there is no official certification for achieving WCAG Level AA standards, we are dedicated to continuously meeting these accessibility guidelines.

Helpful Links for More Information

The Actual Guidelines

 

Tools For Testing Your Website

Editing Content

 

General Information & Training

*Since there are no official laws in place, no automated scanning tool will ever be 100% accurate. FIS makes no claim to the accuracy or completeness of these scans and assumes no liability for accessibility compliance.

**Clients are finally responsible for determining compliance with all regulatory requirements specific to their website. The FIS Web Services team will gladly cooperate with clients to make any changes requested to their websites under the terms of the agreements with those clients.

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