What You Need to Know About ADA

Disclaimer - This is not legal advice, please consult your local association regarding your specific website.

What You Need to Know About ADA

Website Accessibility

Requirements in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) related to physical access to businesses have begun to be applied to online access to businesses, i.e. websites.

Good Business Practices

Accessible website design makes it easier for people with difficulties seeing, hearing or using a standard mouse to access information and services. Implementing features that make a website easier for everyone to use is not hard for web developers to do, and can make a significant difference for those with disabilities.

Guidelines

The most detailed and widely accepted best practices for website accessibility were established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3) as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Most RV parks and campgrounds should aim to follow WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 guidelines.

Tips to Make Your Website More Accessible

Accessibility Statement

Include a page on your website that lists all accessible features and outlines your commitment and efforts to be compliant. This is the first thing lawyers looking for when deciding whether to sue.

Title Tags

Each page of your website should have a unique and descriptive title that indicates what the page covers. Title tags are also a good practive for SEO purposes.

Alt Text

Non-text elements can be images, links, logos, media, form buttons, charts, maps, etc. Many website content management tools (CMS) have fields for alt text that make adding this relatively easy.

Documents

PDFs or image-based documents cannot be easily read by assistive tools like screen readers. A simple HTML webpage or a Rich Text Format (RTF) document will meet this requirement.

Forms

All links, forms and commands on your site should be able to be tabbed through in a logical order to make website navigation accessible. Forms should also have information (descriptive tags, automatic notifications of form fill errors) to help users complete fields correctly.

Visual Content

Minimize use of moving elements like slideshows or graphics that change when hovered over, and provide captions for videos. Make sure there is high contrast between text and background colors & images and that the text is large enough to read. All moving content on your site should be able to be paused or stopped. Videos should have text captions.

Resources to Help Ensure Compliance

WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool WCAG Quick Reference Guide Develop an Accessibility Statement ADA Best Practices Tool Kit