Qualities To Look For In An ADA Consultant

With each passing day, there is a growing ADA compliance for websites. As a result, several consultancy services have appeared in the last decade. Consequently, this has resulted in a rise in demand for ADA website compliance consultants and ADA consulting services. As a result, a number of consulting services have emerged over the past decade.

However, this presents its own problem. With so many ADA companies, which should you pick? In this article, we’ll give you a list of the best qualities to look for in an ADA consultant.

What To Look For In Your ADA Consultant?

Whether you are looking for an ADA consultant for your own website or a company website, you should know what to look for. And the signature qualities to identify a qualified ADA consultant?

1. Substantial Knowledge Regarding WCAG

The web content accessibility guidelines are the cornerstone to ensuring your website meets the standard of the ADA. It has been regarded as the standard by the Department of Justice. As a result, it sees usage by both consultants and web professionals alike.

There is more to accessibility than just using alt text. It goes beyond using media, adjusting text size, color, etc. So, if your consultant lacks substantial knowledge of WCAG, you should keep looking.

One of the most common mistakes made by these types of consultants is overlooking documentation, as accessibility does not stop at just your website. It goes beyond that to documents that they can find on your websites. These include price sheets, brochures, and other documents that users can download from your site.

All of which need to be accessible to those with disabilities. Thus, having a consultant who knows the WCAG in detail can save you from making such mistakes.

2. Qualification

Just like any other job, qualifications matter, especially for ADA consultants. Looking into their qualifications is crucial as one can become an ADA consultant through various means. Thus, before hiring any consultant, ensure that their expertise and capabilities meet your needs.

A great way to learn about a consultant’s abilities is by checking if they belong to any professional organization. Belonging to one, such as the International Association of Accessibility Professionals, guarantees that they are up to date with changes in regulations.

So, hire an individual with the proper credentials and professional association to vouch for it to ensure the future of your website.

3. The Consultants Process

Whichever consultant you choose to hire, you have to be able to understand their process. As an employer, understanding the consultant process gives you a benchmark to measure them up against. Furthermore, their approach can help you figure out your current website’s shortcomings and how you can improve upon them.

So, sit down with them and discuss how they can help you. And the kind of process they follow. It can help you determine if they are a good fit for you.

4. Testimonial And Case Studies

When hiring a consultant or a team, you need to see what kind of work they have done before this. A good reputation is crucial for a consultant. The best way to do this is through testimonials. These testimonials give you an idea of what you can expect from them when you go into business with them.

Case studies also play a crucial role in this. They can show you how they can help you and your website through case studies. And how they solved similar issues that prior clients may have had.

5. Understanding Your Unique Needs

Each company, individual, or organization is unique. Thus, they require special attention. The same is true when making a website more accessible. It needs to meet both your specific users’ needs.

Thus, a qualified ADA consultant must have an understanding of your needs. And be able to make your website ADA compliant and meet your needs. So, when looking for a consultant, ensure that he has at least some prior experience in your industry.

Conclusion

Finding the right ADA consulting services can prove to be a challenge. Considering the numerous ADA website compliance consultants currently available, you need to know what to look for. Hopefully, the qualities we mentioned will guide you through the process. However, if you have any other questions about ADA or inclusive web design, feel free to contact us.

Working on a website can be difficult. Adding new media and updating pages is chore, even though you know your company website needs to evolve and become more accessible to the many users you are trying to reach. Maybe when you first built it, accessibility wasn’t even really discussed. But now you’ve taken a step back, looked at your customer base with a desire to include everyone and you’ve realized just how important it is to make your site accessible. However, the thought of building a robust site that can do all the things you want it to do is overwhelming.

What is Web Accessibility

A practice of designing and coding the website in order to provide complete compatibility in accessing it by people with disabilities. In addition, it is a way to improve search engine optimization only an ADA Compliant Web Designer will help you to make your website Compliant. Is your website compatible? By going through the checklist below, you can get the answer.

Assessing Current Web Pages and Content

The website must include a feature like a navigation link at the top of the page. These links have a bypass mechanism such as a “skip navigation” link. This feature directs screen readers to bypass the row of navigation links and start at the web page content. It is beneficial for people who use screen readers to avoid to listen to all the links each time they jump to a new page.
All the links should be understandable when taken out of the context. For example, images without alternative text and links without worded as “click here”.
All the graphics, maps, images, and other non-text content must provide text alternatives through the alt attribute, a hidden/visible long description.
All the documents posted on the website should available in HTML or another accessible text-based format. It is also applicable to other formats like Portable Document Format (PDF).
The online forms on the website should be structured so assistive technology can identify, describe and operate the controls and inputs. By doing this, people with disabilities can review and submit the forms.
If the website has online forms, the drop-down list should describe the information instead of displaying a response option. For instance, “Your Age” instead of “18-25”.
If the website has data charts and tables, they should be structured so that all data cells are associated with column and row identifiers.
All the video files on the website must have audio descriptions (if necessary). This is for the convenience of blind people or for having a visual impairment disability.
All the video files on the website must have synchronized captions. People with hearing problems or deaf can access these files conveniently.
All the audio files on the website should have synchronized captions to provide access to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
All web pages should be designed so that they can be viewed using visitors’ web browser and operating system settings for color and font.

About Website Accessibility Policy and Procedures

One must have a written policy on website accessibility.
The website accessibility policy must be posted on the website at a location where it can be easily found.
The procedure should be developed to ensure that content is not added to the website until it has been made accessible.
It should be confirmed that the website manager has checked the code and structure of all new web pages before they are posted.
While adding the PDFs to the website, these should be accessible. Also, the text-based versions of the documents should be accessible at the same time as PDF versions.
Make sure that the in-house and contractor staff has received the information about the website accessibility policy and procedure to confirm the website accessibility.
It should be confirmed that in-house and contractor staff has received appropriate training on how to ensure the accessibility of the website.
The website should have a specific written plan if it contains inaccessible content. Also, it should include timeframes in place to make all of the existing web content accessible.
A complete plan to improve website accessibility should be posted along with invited suggestions for improvement.
The homepage should include easily locatable information that includes contact details like telephone number and email address. This is useful for reporting website accessibility problems and requesting accessibility services with information.
A website should have procedures in place to assure a quick response to the visitors with disabilities who have difficulty in accessing information or services available on the website.
Feedback from people who use a variety of assistive technologies is helpful in ensuring website accessibility. So make sure to ask disability groups representing people to provide feedback on the accessibility of your website.
Testing the website using a product available on the internet is helpful, These tools are of free cost and check the accessibility of a website. They may not identify all accessibility issues and flag issues that are not accessibility problems. However, these are, nonetheless, a helpful way to improve website accessibility.

Checklist of Action Items for Improving the Accessibility of a Website

In addition, while considering the above suggestions, the following checklist initially prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for Federal Agencies provides further guidelines on ways to make websites more accessible for persons with disabilities.

This practical advice, as well as another checklist, are available at:

Satisfying all of these items does not necessarily mean that a website complies with ADA, but it will improve the website’s accessibility and decrease the risk of litigation. Again, an Expert or Web Accessibility Consulting & Services provider should be engaged to conduct a comprehensive review of your website.

Nothing brings you closer to reality than actually facing it. This is the premise of my latest attempt to spread awareness about Web Accessibility.

For better understand, here is a link in which a practical example is shown to make the websites’ user experience better by following the guidelines. Also, it tells the issues affecting various users on the internet with solutions.

You can make your website ADA compliant in an easy way by consulting the professionals, who can do this job effortlessly. Also, you can get a quick website audit from To Be ADA Compliant that offers complete web accessibility consulting & services in California, USA.

Resource: https://dev.to/chinchang/an-interactive-and-practical-introduction-to-web-accessibility-22o1