ADA Website Compliance Testing

The Complete Guide to ADA Website Compliance Testing

The Foundation of eCommerce Accessibility: Beyond Testing

While testing is crucial for maintaining ADA compliance, for eCommerce businesses, true accessibility starts before a single line of code is written or a product page is designed. In today’s digital landscape, eCommerce accessibility is no longer optional – it’s a legal requirement, a business imperative, and a fundamental aspect of ethical online commerce. Achieving comprehensive WCAG 2.1 AA compliance goes far beyond simply testing an existing website and applying fixes.

To truly protect your business and provide an inclusive experience for all potential customers, you need a solid foundation: an eCommerce platform meticulously designed and built from the ground up with accessibility as a core principle. This isn’t just about avoiding lawsuits; it’s about creating a welcoming and usable online store for everyone, ensuring that users of all abilities can seamlessly navigate, browse, and complete purchases.

EnterpriStore Provides a solution by offering an eCommerce platform built with WCAG 2.1 AA source code compliance as a core principle. This proactive approach ensures that accessibility is inherent in the platform’s DNA, minimizing the need for extensive remediation later.

How can you know if your website is ADA compliant?

Free auditing tools are available online to test your website for ADA compliance and WCAG conformance with ease. Equally AI ADA compliance checker, you’re presented with a holistic overview of accessibility errors and what needs to be adjusted in order to conform with WCAG 2.1 Level AA guidelines. The scan operates in just a few seconds, providing you with an almost immediate answer to whether your website is ADA Title III compliant or not.

The Complete Guide to ADA Website Compliance Testing

To know whether your website is accessible to all visitors and in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), you will need to test it. Read this guide to learn about the different testing methods and tools you can use to properly examine your website’s state of ADA compliance.

Ensuring your website complies with the Americans with Disabilities (ADA) is a critical step, and one that will see your business become inclusive to members of the disability communities.

To know whether your website is ADA-compliant, you will need to test it.

But how can you do that?

What tools and methods should you leverage to ensure your website complies with the ADA to the fullest extent of the law?

In this guide, we’ll explain what ADA website compliance entails and explore testing tools and services that will ensure your website and web-based applications are accessible to people with disabilities.

Key Takeaways:

ADA-compliant websites are those that conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) at Level AA
As a website owner, you have three main methods by which you can test your website for WCAG conformance and ADA compliance: Manually, using automated tools, and by leveraging both methods
Manual compliance testing is typically conducted by accessibility experts, who thoroughly inspect your site and flag the accessibility issues within it
Automated tools flag most compliance issues within a matter of seconds, and show you what needs to be done to remediate them
Blending both testing approaches yields the optimal results: Automated tools can flag most accessibility issues, allowing for experts to then further analyze and remediate them

How to test for ADA website compliance

As a website owner, you have ‌two primary options to conduct regular tests and ensure ongoing ADA compliance.

1. Manual testing methods yield both quantitative and qualitative data. Typically requiring more time and resources, manual tests are relatively labor-intensive and can be more expensive

2. Automated testing methods, on the other hand, prioritize quantitative data, providing quicker results and often prove to be more cost-effective.

As a website owner, you’re best served by incorporating both testing approaches. That way, you can reap the benefits of quick automated testing, an especially powerful approach for initial testing. You can rest assured knowing that manual experts will then identify more complex issues that aren’t always apparent during preliminary automated tests.

Let’s break down each approach separately:

Manual testing methods

Manual ADA website compliance testing is typically conducted by web accessibility and ADA compliance experts. These professionals analyze your website and web-based applications, checking their level of conformance with WCAG at the relevant level (AA or AAA).

Manual testing can be more costly and time-consuming. However, it offers valuable qualitative insights. For instance, manual testing service providers, such as can more properly assess whether form instructions or error messages are sufficiently comprehensible, or whether certain multi-stage processes can derail the browsing experience of specific visitors. Armed with this information, you can develop a plan to address the identified issues.

Experts will assess your website’s conformance with WCAG by using assistive technologies, such as screen readers. This simulates the user experience of a person who is blind and can yield important insights as to how user-friendly your website is to them. Testers will also consider how your website caters to people with other disabilities. Professional testers typically evaluate compatibility with significant disability categories, such as physical disabilities, cognitive disabilities, and hearing impairments.

Many expert service providers make use of an ADA website compliance checklist during their audit process. This helps them concentrate on key areas of a website that need to be examined for WCAG conformance.

Automated testing methods

Automated testing is the act of using automated tools to quickly audit your website’s level of conformance with WCAG.

This approach has a few key advantages:

Automated tools, complement manual testing methods and are often more efficient in completing the initial step of the testing process mentioned earlier. Many components of your website can be flagged as inaccessible quickly and at little to no cost. Then, web accessibility experts can dive deeper into these problems, assessing their true scope and examining whether they extend to other areas of your website.

It is worth stressing again that to ensure your website is ADA-compliant, it is widely recommended to leverage both testing approaches.

ADA website compliance testing tools

You can check if your website is ADA-compliant with Equally AI , a free automated testing tool that examines your website’s overall state of accessibility. To use Equally AI, you will need to submit your website’s URL, after which the tool will run a quick, automated audit of your web page and check whether it conforms to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. The tool will scan key components of your web page, such as buttons, forms, images, menus, and links, to ensure they are configured so that people with disabilities can fully access them. Once the audit is complete, your web page will be given a score: compliant, semi-compliant, or non-compliant. You will also be given a detailed report (which you can download as a PDF) highlighting specific website elements that may require further attention. You will need to address these to achieve ADA compliance. It is worth noting that ongoing accessibility testing can be conducted while it is being developed. Today, web developers can remediate websites and webapps on platforms such as Equally AI Flowy, which continuously tests for accessibility, and provides code fixes within a workflow to implement them. This can prove especially useful for those with a development team looking to implement native web accessibility. Existing code is scored, so that developers can understand what they need to improve and how they can ensure they are building a website that complies with the ADA. Transforming the web into a fair and equitable space for members of the disability communities is a moral imperative. Far too often, people with disabilities face discrimination online in the form of websites that are partially or fully inaccessible. With more than a quarter of American adults having some form of disability, website owners need to be aware of the fact that website visitors with disabilities have particular needs, and take these into account when designing and coding their websites. It is important to note that the population of people with disabilities has considerable consumer power. It is estimated that people with disabilities, along with their families, friends, and associates, have $13 trillion in disposable income globally. By ensuring their websites are fully accessible and compliant with the ADA, businesses appeal to disability community members, expanding their reach and consumer base.

What are the consequences of not complying with the ADA?

When your website fails to be accessible and comply with the ADA, you present members of the disability communities with digital barriers that others do not have to face, and that often prevents them from being able to use your website. Whether intentional or not, featuring inaccessible design and UI elements on your website is an act of discrimination against people with disabilities that can result in significant legal action.

Businesses and website owners with non-compliant websites risk receiving ADA website compliance demand letters, and potentially facing ADA website compliance lawsuits. Both can bring about significant financial repercussions and can damage your brand reputation.

Common compliance issues you should be looking for during your testing process

Insufficient color contrast: Text and background colors must have enough contrast to allow people with certain vision impairments to access information. According to WCAG guidelines, there should be at least a 4.5:1 contrast ratio between text and its background, and a 3:1 contrast ratio between titles and their backgrounds
Insufficient keyboard navigation functionality: Websites must be fully navigable using a keyboard alone, following WCAG guidelines. This ensures that users who cannot use a mouse or other pointing devices can access all elements and functionalities of the site
Non-responsive design: Websites must adapt to various screen sizes to enable visitors to access information on their devices, particularly on smartphones, ensuring a seamless browsing experience regardless of device type
Missing alt text for meaningful images: Images that convey critical information should be accompanied by alt text describing their content. This enables individuals who use assistive technology, like screen readers, to understand the purpose and context of the images.
Auto-playing and time-based media: Media elements should not play automatically without user consent. Websites need to provide clear notifications about time limits and offer mechanisms to extend engagement time for users who require it
Videos lacking captions: Videos must include accurate captions to assist individuals with hearing impairments. Captions should accurately reflect the audio content, including spoken dialogue and non-verbal sounds, to ensure accessibility and conformance with WCAG guidelines
Lack of compatibility with assistive technologies: Websites should be compatible with various assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to ensure that individuals with vision impairments can access and navigate content effectively
Lack of tactile feedback: Devices, especially smartphones, should provide tactile feedback such as vibration to assist users with vision and hearing impairments in navigating through applications and websites effectively
Challenging CAPTCHAs: CAPTCHAs used on websites should be accessible to individuals with different types of impairments. Alternatives to traditional CAPTCHAs, like audio CAPTCHAs or reCAPTCHA, should be available to accommodate users with vision and cognitive impairments

Important note:

This is a very partial list. We recommend you check out our ADA compliance checklist for a more comprehensive look at this topic.

Closing thoughts

Members of the disability community deserve equal access to websites. Complying with the ADA will see you doing your part in ending the discrimination this group faces when attempting to engage with online environments. Regularly testing your website and web-based applications for ADA compliance is key in that regard. By leveraging a combination of manual and automated approaches, you can effectively maintain compliance while managing considerations of speed and cos

Ready to Make Your eCommerce Site Truly Accessible and Inclusive?

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