A11y: An Introduction to ADA Compliance
During the course of these tutorials, and when reading about accessibility online, you will come across the term ‘a11y.’ This is short for ‘accessibility.’ In web development, it’s a common practice with longer terms to use numbers in place of the middle letters; in other words, there are 11 letters between the ‘a’ and the ‘y’ in accessibility. It also sounds and reads like “ally,” which is a bonus.
The more you know.
ADA and Why it Matters
The purpose of these ADA training videos and tutorials is to help you understand and know how to make sure your content can be accessed by all of our website users, no matter the method.
Through the latest published census data report on disabilities, we learn that nearly 30% of all Americans have a disability, and that about 20% have a disability that alters the way they interact with digital mediums and the internet, which is right on target with our own data that shows that 20% of our website users (whether children or their guardians at home) access our websites using non-standard methods. When we create websites and publish content that doesn’t take into account those with disabilities, we effectively exclude them from information that’s vital to their own, or their children’s, educational success.
“The impact of disability is radically changed on the Web because the Web removes barriers to communication and interaction that many people face in the physical world.”
W3C on Accessibility
As we continually make accessible improvements to our websites, we are sending the accurate and appropriate message that we serve all our patrons, and not just those without limitations.
The Roots of ADA
Website accessibility is a large field, and its roots lie in three areas: The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and Section 508.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life including jobs, schools, transportation, and all places that are open to the public.
The Rehabilitation Act is similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act, but specifically covers instances where federal money is involved. Section 508 is an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act that protects the right of people with disabilities to have equal access to electronic and information technology.
Hooray WCAG
Having to wade through hundreds of pages of legal mumbo jumbo to create accessible web content is labor intensive. Thankfully the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in collaboration with individuals and organizations around the world have done most of that wading for us, and in recent years they’ve put together what we call the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG for short (pronounced “way-kag”), which encompasses all three of those legal areas. WCAG has three levels of compliance: A, AA, and AAA.
As a public school district we need to adhere to WCAG AA. WCAG operates under four main principles: Perceivable (is the content and interface presented in a way that’s easily visible), Operable (is the website easy to navigate and use), Understandable (does the content make sense and is it predictable), and Robust (can it be accessed by a variety of methods).