ADA Compliance For Your Website

Posted on Jul 01, 2021 by Imaginal Marketing

When first reading that headline, we can imagine three other letters come to mind: WTW?  And you’re not alone so we’re here to help you understand what ADA Compliance is and what it means for your salon/spa website.  

What is ADA Compliance?

ADA refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which requires businesses to make “reasonable accommodations” for those with disabilities. This also extends to online businesses and web presence.  

For people who are blind, colorblind, have other visual or motor impairments or conditions like epilepsy, websites can be a challenging space to navigate. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) outlines specific best practices for online businesses to follow­. These guidelines include things like legible fonts, ability to turn off animations, properly labeled images for site reading software and more. 

Why does this matter now?

The WCAG released their updated ADA Compliance guidelines in June 2019 and with that has come a flurry of lawsuits targeting non-compliant businesses. Several salons and spas have been targeted already and this will continue to be a hot legal issue for 2021.

How do I make my website ADA Compliant?

While your website from IM Marketing Group has some basic components of compliance, we’ve partnered with AccessiBe® to offer a full ADA compliance software solution to protect you–and make your site accessible to ALL of your guests. 

Once we configure and install AccessiBe on your website, your guests will be able to select the handicap icon to open a menu interface that allows them to customize the way they view and experience your site. They can enlarge text, change the font or spacing, change the site colors and also turn off site animations.

The software also goes a step further and uses an AI engine to scan your website content every 24 hours and learn your site so someone with a visual or motor impairment using a screen reader has a more complete site experience. It assigns accurate labels to forms and buttons and descriptions for things like social icons and images. It also makes your site fully navigable by keyboard and/or keyboard commands. 

One other cool thing to note–because your site is scanned every 24 hours, any updates you make to your website will also be scanned and made compliant.

Want to see this software in action? Visit https://oscarblandi.com/ and select the blue circle icon in the bottom right of the screen.

This software is offered as annual subscription. It’s $490 per year with a one-time setup fee of $300+ (setup costs vary depending on how large your website is).  

Want to know more or interested in getting this for your salon/spa website?  Email hello@immarketinggroup.com or call (985) 792-0991.