ADA and accessibility basics
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been around since 1990 — long before we were thinking about the types of digital marketing tactics (websites, etc) that we're all familiar with today. The ADA states that the media we produce must be accessible for people with visual impairments and other disabilities. As we create websites, emails, banner ads, and other digital media, we are required to make sure all of our work is ADA-compliant.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) dictate the rules that we're responsible for following for ADA compliance. Read them! They're interesting! I'm not kidding.
In recent years, more companies are taking ADA very seriously, as ADA-related lawsuits are on the rise. And remember, ADA compliance is not just a legal requirement, it's also our ethical responsibility to make all of our work accessible for people with visual impairments and other disabilities.
What are the implications of ADA on our work in digital marketing? Here are some of the main things we have to consider for our tactics. This is not meant to be exhaustive by any means! This is just the basics.
Color contrast: All text colors and background colors must be checked for minimum contrast ratio; there are tons of free tools that do this. Find out from your client if they require the "AA" rating or "AAA" rating; AA, which is a little less strict, is generally the default requirement.
Meaningful link text, aka link purpose: Linked words — in an inline link, button, etc — must give context about where they go. Not just "click here" or "learn more." This one is actually a fascinating topic that a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their brains around, so I wrote a whole article about it: Meaningful link text, aka link purpose
Html-based text rather than placing text in images: This is so that users of screen reader software can hear all of your text. (Avoiding text in images is also very important for SEO.)
Alt text for images: It's important to know which images need alt text — and which don't! — and how to write the appropriate kind of alt text for your images. (Alt text is also important for SEO, of course.) Knowing what kind of alt text to write is another really neat topic; see my article on alt text basics.
Navigation with the tab key: The user should be able to easily tab through all of the links in your website, and each link should display some sort of visual feedback as it becomes the focus.
"Skip to main content" option: The first time the user presses the tab key, this should appear. This is so a person using a screen reader doesn't have to listen to all of the main nav selections on each page before they can access the actual content. Try it now (if you're on desktop)!
Closed captioning and/or transcripts: If you're embedding video in your website, ADA requires that you provide a text-based alternative to your users.
No flashing or strobing effects: This goes for video, and also any programmatic animation.
Pause button: Anything that animates for more than five seconds must have a pause button, even if it's just (for example) an animated background on a hero image.
Color alone must not signify meaning: Got a bar chart with two bars? Using two different colors isn't enough. They need to be clearly labeled — or, you can do something cool like give the colors different patterns; diagonal lines, dots, etc.
Coding best practices: Lots of under-the-hood formatting stuff that devs need to be aware of. Nice, clean, semantic, well-formatted code is extremely important.
... and there's more! I'm always happy to answer questions about these topics, but they're also pretty easy to Google. The above are the broad strokes; there's a lot more nuance to understand.
A matter of empathy
In adhering to WCAG rules and making our work ADA-compliant, it's important we always remember that it's not just a legal requirement, it's our ethical responsibility and it helps real people. That's the real reason. Let's not lose sight of that.
– Manning
Questions/comments? Feel free to contact me at manning@manningkrull.com. I update these articles pretty frequently — best practices evolve over time as the world of digital quickly changes, and I always welcome insights from others.