The Americans with Disabilities Act book on a table with a gavel

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Positive Change for Impaired Websites™

The time has come to make the internet easier to use for more people than ever. A substantial amount of business and sales are conducted online on a daily basis. In fact, annually Americans spent in excess of $600 BILLION with online merchants last year. This number has increased throughout 2020, since the global pandemic of Coronavirus/COVID-19 swept the globe by storm. It’s projected that online sales will only continue to increase rapidly over the next decade and beyond. A portion of these sales is from people with disabilities, and that portion of sales could be significantly higher, once your website is more accessible.

Throughout Florida, individuals with disabilities are finding that they cannot access websites and other digital media and they require assistance to do so. This is where ADA compliancy laws come into the picture, you may find yourself wondering, what is ADA compliancy in relation to my website?

ADA Background

The federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a form of civil rights legislation that was passed originally in 1990. This act prohibits discrimination against those with disabilities, which ensures they have the same rights and opportunities as those without disabilities. This means that any and all businesses that serve the public must ensure their building accommodates individuals with various disabilities.

What is ADA Compliance?

The U.S. Department of Justice passed the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design, which mandated all electronic and information technology, like websites, to be accessible to those individuals with disabilities, like vision impairment and hearing loss. This is a necessary step in civil rights law to ensure disabled Americans are not discriminated against and there are equal opportunities for all. Basically, your website needs to be accessible to individuals with disabilities that affect their vison, hearing or physical capacities.

Digital Accessibility for Americans with Disabilities

According to the CDC, there are approximately 12 million American over the age of 40 with vision impairment. 8 million of these Americans have vision impairment due to uncorrected refractive error. There are 3 million Americans who have vision impairment after correction and 1 million Americans who are blind, which includes children. Then, we have individuals with hearing loss disabilities, it is estimated there are 466 million people worldwide with disabling hearing loss, and the WHO expects that number to increase to 900 million by the year 2050. Visit The Burden of Vision Loss CDC.gov

We’re here to assist you in getting your website ADA compliant, this will allow you to serve the millions of Americans with disabilities, ensuring they are treated with dignity, respect and fairness. In addition, you will be widening your customer base to include a previously excluded group of people, even if it was unintentional prior to learning what it means for your website to be ADA compliant.

If you’re unsure where you should begin, hiring a company to help bring your website in accordance with ADA guidelines is an essential start. See, there are no clear rules when it comes to ADA compliance. This doesn’t let businesses off the hook, they still are required to provide an accessible website for users with disabilities. How do I get my website ADA compliant if there are no clear rules? You can start with a few actions that will set your path to ADA compliancy and help to demonstrate your business has made a good-faith effort towards accommodating those with disabilities.

The internet is utilized across the world, and in total, as much as 15% of the world’s population experiences or has experienced some form of disability or temporary impediment that hinders their ability to have equal access to digital content. ADA Lawsuits Florida, is here to upgrade your website, so you have the ability to provide access to the millions of potential customers you aren’t currently reaching.

Why Does My Website Need to be ADA Compliant?

Avoid Penalties – Dozens of esteemed brands have been hit with significant ADA lawsuits in recent years, dozens of small businesses have been hit in Florida as well. In fact, Florida is one of the top states for highest amounts of ADA Lawsuits. Since we are now past the ruling date, all updated pages on your website are required to be at least grade A compliant, with grade AAA being the highest grade. Presently there is an existing safe harbor clause which allows your current content to remain as is, unless it was altered after January 18, 2018. Its important to know that the guidelines do pertain to any page on your website that was updated/altered after that day. You can avoid penalties and legal costs by ensuring your website is ADA compliant, which will save you thousands of dollars you could pay after losing a lawsuit.
ADA Compliance Can Improve SEO – Search engine optimization guidelines are ever-evolving, and more search engines are expanding their capabilities and crawling pages with more human intention. An essential element of WCAG is accessibility to screen readers, (screen readers are software programs that allow visually impaired or blind web users the ability to read the text that is displayed on the computer screen with a speech synthesizer or a braille display), the readers crawl your website similarly to how a search engine would. Upon meeting the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, your website will appeal to a greater audience of users, search engines, etc., which ultimately can improve your SEO. Alternative image text, video transcripts, and meta tagging guidelines need to be seriously adhered to.
ADA Compliance Increases Target Audience – When your website is not ADA Compliant, you are automatically missing out on potential customers with disabilities that cannot access your website. These individuals are interested in your services and products, upon landing on your website however, they cannot navigate your site and cannot contact you either. Oftentimes these individuals move on to your ADA Compliant competitors quickly.
ADA Compliance Equals Improved Website Usability – When you make your web pages more navigable and overall easier to comprehend for all users, disabled or not, a better user experience on your website will be had and users will find what they are looking for faster.
ADA Tax Credits - The IRS has taken initiative to assist tax payers in their efforts to achieve ADA compliance, and created the ADA Disabled Access Tax Credit.

The company you choose to assist you in achieving ADA compliance for your website is vital to the success of the level of compliance. Let us guide you through the process, and protect you from unwanted costly ADA lawsuits. We’ll get you started on the path of having a website that is accessible by everyone, not just individuals without disabilities. The fact that you are putting forth the effort to ensure everyone is included can really set you apart from your competitors.

NOTICE: This website is designed to assist Florida Businesses and Residents with ADA compliance for websites. We recommend checking with an attorney in your state before making any decisions based on the information presented on this website.