by Theresa Carpine 24.July 2008 08:57
It’s always a bit confusing when I try to explain exactly what I do at Mindfly. I work for a web design and development company, but I don’t actually do web design or development. Mostly I write. I write a little of this and a little of that. So when it falls on me to write a Mindfly blog post, the writing part is easy. But making it connect to, you know, web stuff…that’s a little trickier for me.
At a recent family gathering, my mother was trying to explain what I do exactly (“she works for a web design and development company, but doesn’t actually do web design or development”) to my uncle, who also happens to be in the web biz for a public school district. He mentioned to her that their district website was being overhauled to make it ADA-compliant. And I don’t mean making a dentist-friendly website.
The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed by the United States Congress in 1990 to ensure “access to employment, state and local government programs and services, access to places of public accommodations, transportation, non-profits service providers and telecommunications” for people with disabilities. Websites of state and local governments fall in the category of “public services” under Title II of the ADA, which means that extra steps have to be taken to ensure that people with disabilities can still access the resources of those websites.
For example, a person with impaired or limited vision might use a screen reader program, which speaks the text on a website for the visitor. But a screen reader can’t read an image, so an ADA-compliant website should include an “alt” tag in the HTML code with a brief and meaningful description of the image.
Unlike government agencies, creating a website that is accessible for people with disabilities is not a requirement for private or business websites, but you could be discounting a population of potential customers that can’t access your site. If you’d like some more tips for making an ADA-compliant website, check out Website Accessibility Under Title II of the ADA, which describes some of the issues, solutions and other considerations that web designers and developers may want to account for when creating a website.