ADA Compliance
Accessibility guidelines for websites to achieve ADA compliance
Having an accessible website and marketing materials means having your entire team briefed on what accessible marketing looks like. Don’t panic—once you get the hang of things, it’s very quick to ensure your site is accessible.
Start by keeping the following guidelines in mind:
Content
When writing content for web, emails, social media, etc., it’s important that content is accessible for people with all four types of disabilities: visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive.
Structure
To help those users with a screen reader or other visual impairments easily read your content, use headings properly. That means using the proper heading tags (e.g. use the H2 function, instead of simply using a bigger or bolder font). Your headings should also follow a logical hierarchy: the title or H1 is followed by an H2, and underneath an H2 heading use an H3 heading. This makes the structure and importance of content easy to follow.
Readability
Making content easy to read and follow is important for readers with cognitive disabilities, but it also makes your content easier to scan and read for other users as well. Keep your sentences short and to the point.
Use bulleted lists, summary sections, and bolded keywords for easier scanning. Start with the most important information and end with the least important information. Avoid jargon and overly complicated words. Left align all text, including headlines.
Link text
When linking to other webpages, don’t use “click here” as the link text. Using descriptive link text make it clear to users with screen readers or visual impairments which link is which and where each one leads.
Accessible files
If you link to PDFs, PowerPoints, Word documents, or other types of files, make sure those files are accessible.