The decision to create the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 20 years ago this week, was influenced by protests and folks with disabilities struggling to get into stores, post offices and RMV’s without wheelchair accessible ramps or Braille labeled doors. People could actually witness wheelchairs struggle to navigate stairs and narrow hallways. In todays digital world, Accessibilities issue are often invisable and they are now often a silent killer. With this in mind we must ask ourselves, 'who is lobbying for the visually impaired and hard of hearing today; on one of the largest and fastest growing venues, the internet?' With 266M users in North America alone the fact of the matter is businesses may be blissfully unaware that their website is not accessible to a certain group of users. For example if a visually impaired person tries to purchase an item from your website and are faced with accessibility issues, they will most likely go to a competitor’s website. These type numbers aren’t “make or break” for a business…but they matter - especially in today’s economy.
Web Operations is growing by staggering proportions each year and as the trend toward shopping from home/paying bills online/renewing your registration grows, the community of reviews and discussion forums to help guide consumer decisions grow with it (see Yelp, Epinion, etc.). Fact – reputation is paramount to business success. One in five US Citizens have a disability; that amounts to approximately twice the population size of Texas that may to create a bad stir about a company – something that businesses can ill afford and a reputation that is hard to shake.
Until the ADA is updated to include Web Compliance, and all organizations embrace WCAG, the driving factor for businesses to make their websites accessible to the widest possible audience is reliant on their bottom line; as accessible web estates are perceived to be too expensive to implement.
Until the ADA is updated to include Web Compliance, and all organizations embrace WCAG, the driving factor for businesses to make their websites accessible to the widest possible audience is reliant on their bottom line; as accessible web estates are perceived to be too expensive to implement.
Vamosa’s WebWorxx service starts at just $500/month, significantly reducing the costs involved in maintaining an accessible web estate. Everyday it points out areas on your sites where you may not be WCAG / 508 compliant, and how to best tackle these issues with your Web Operations Team. Download the 14 day trial now!
Powered by Compendium