It’s May, and that means Global Accessibility Awareness Day is coming up. Last year it was May 17, 2017. This year, it’s May 18. Put the third Thursday of May on your calendar for future years, and use that date as a means to get the word out about changes you’re making on your site regarding accessibility.
The laws are rapidly changing regarding online accessibility. It’s only a matter of time until all websites are required to be accessible to all people, regardless of abilities, just as public businesses are required to be accessible. Pretty soon, accessible websites will be as commonplace as marked handicapped parking spaces, and wheelchair ramps.
If your website hasn’t yet begun a campaign to change over from a non-accessible site to an accessible one, know that the law will not be on your side for long. Lawsuits are piling up in regards to websites that people with altered abilities have tried to access and couldn’t. If you are aware of the accessibility problems on your site and not taking steps to bring your website up to compliance standards, that leaves you vulnerable to a lawsuit.
If you’re taking steps to make your website accessible, a lawsuit will be a lot harder to bring to courts, since it will be clearly shown that you are actively working to resolve the problem.
Take two steps now…Learn more about Global Accessibility Awareness Day and why it’s important.
And then, look into what you need to do to make your website compliant for online accessibility. The ADA Plugin, which scans your site for compliancy issues and presents you with a checklist of items to fix along with providing the explanation for why they need to be fixed, is an excellent first step. We can help you learn more about that, so don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Photo by Yu-chuan Hsu on Unsplash
