Web accessibility involves following best-practices of website access, coding, display, and interaction — to ensure there are no barriers for those with disabilities. This would ideally allow all WordPress site users to have equal access to both the information and functionality. This often requires adding additional descriptive tags to existing code, improving navigation structure, ensuring colors and text are displayed in a very legible manner, etc. — so that any valuable information is available and easily accessible to all who wish to obtain it.

To be honest — we’re not sure. Since we’re not lawyers, nor did we make the “rules”, we can’t accurately answer that. When it comes to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), there really aren’t any specific technical requirements for websites. However, this doesn’t mean you should ignore ADA or web accessibility. What we do know, is that all websites should be given a good-faith-effort of becoming easily accessible. This should be the case for any user who may wish to browse your website, regardless of their disability of type of impairment. They deserve it. Making your WordPress website accessible benefits an array of individuals and businesses. You can learn more at this W3C Intro to Web Accessibility page. Basically, there are standards which apply to US federal agencies, and State or Local Government websites (not business/personal websites). While some disability discrimination laws do mention websites, they don’t specify the technical standards required to comply with the law. Regardless of ADA’s lack of stating websites must be fully accessible, the Department of Justice seems to rule on the side of “they should be”.

By and large, WordPress ADA plugins simply provide you with checklists of tasks that you need to carry out. They normally tell you that you need to implement alt tags and optimize your website for screen readers. However, they leave all of the hard work to you. To adapt your website to ADA and WCAG standards, you’ll need to fully understand the guidelines for accessible design. This can involve a lot more work than you might imagine, especially if you don’t have a background in web design or development. At FreshySites, we take care of any necessary redesigns to ensure that your website fully meets ADA and WCAG standards. Our team of web designers understands what’s required for WordPress ADA compliance, so we can make sure your site fulfills every requirement.

As part of our expert WordPress services, we can review your website to see where it meets ADA and WCAG standards and where it doesn’t. We can also show you third-party test results that indicate where your website’s weak areas are, and what can be done to address those shortcomings. Keep in mind that there’s no official ADA certification. However, we have the expertise to ensure that your WordPress website fully meets WCAG Conformance Levels A and AA.

There is no official certification for ADA compliance. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) contains guidelines/documents for web accessibility, which are published by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) via their Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Neither the government, the guidelines, the organization, nor the initiative offer any official certification. Third-party tools are available for WordPress that test the conformance level of the outlined WCAG standards. Testing — combined with human evaluation — help determine if a website is “compliant”. Based on the results, there are third-party companies that are willing to “certify” the WordPress website as being compliant.

In simple terms, WCAG 2 Conformance Level A is less strict than Level AA — and is therefore more “easily” obtainable and maintainable. Level A conformance means all WCAG 2 Level A requirements (success criteria) have been satisfied. Level AA conformance satisifed all the WCAG 2 Level A requirements, in addition to the Level AA requirements. You can read more information about understanding conformance requirements, or view the quick reference guide to WCAG 2 requirements.