In 2010, the US Department of Justice published ADA Standards for Section 508 Accessibility. They called that document the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design. The purpose of the document was to help people learn about Section 508 accessibility and provide standards for how electronic and information technology would be made accessible to people with disabilities.
These standards must be upheld by any commercial and public entities that have “places of public accommodation,” which used to be considered brick-and-mortar places of business but are now also considered to be publicly accessible websites.
The Section 508 Accessibility law applies to private employers with 15 or more employees, businesses operating for the benefit of the public, and all government agencies. The only way to be sure that your website complies with Section 508 Accessibility laws is to do a self-assessment or hire an expert to do the assessment.
A self-assessment is difficult. Why? Because while the law is straightforward, the requirements are complex and technical. Unless you have a very clear understanding of website structure and coding, you will be challenged to identify what is wrong on a site, compare it with what is required to fix it, and actually implement those fixes.
Our agency has implemented two solutions to help solve this problem. We have created the ADA Plugin, which is an affordable option for people who manage websites and are confident in making the fixes themselves. The ADA Plugin scans a website for Section 508 Accessibility compliance issues, flags them, and connects them with the standard’s requirements so they can easily be fixed. The second solution is to hire our agency to run the scan for you and fix any and all issues your site may be experiencing.
With that option, your site is thoroughly reviewed by someone whose job it is to understand the complex technical requirements of Section 508 Accessibility and fix them. You will be assured that your site is compliant from the ground up, and you can more easily maintain that compliance as time goes on.
Sound good? Get in touch and we’ll talk about what you need for a site scan. Ready to buy the plugin? That’s easy. Just decide whether you want one, 5 or 10 or more and we’ll take it from there.
