How to make your website ADA compliant

Website accessibility compliance is a legal requirement in most countries, not just a design consideration. In the United States, the framework is the Americans with Disabilities Act. In the European Union, the European Accessibility Act. In the UK, the Equality Act. The technical standard referenced by all of them is the same: WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Building an ADA compliant website means meeting that standard, and the steps to do it apply regardless of which jurisdiction your business operates in.

ADA compliant website design means building a site that meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA, the technical standard referenced by the Americans with Disabilities Act for web accessibility. WCAG is the same standard referenced in the EU's European Accessibility Act, the UK's Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations, and accessibility legislation in Canada, Australia, and most other countries with web accessibility requirements. The legal wrapper varies by country. The technical requirements are consistent.

The process is not a single audit done once. It is an ongoing practice of building, testing, and maintaining accessibility as the site evolves. New pages, new features, and design updates all introduce the potential for new accessibility gaps.

What does ADA compliance mean for a website?

The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in public life. Title III of the Act covers places of public accommodation, which courts and the Department of Justice have consistently interpreted to include websites operated by businesses serving the public.

Web accessibility lawsuits filed in US federal courts have increased each year since 2015, crossing 4,000 annual filings for the first time in recent years. The businesses named in these cases range from large retailers to small service providers. The size of the business has not reliably protected defendants from legal action.

The standard courts most frequently reference when evaluating website accessibility claims is WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Building your website to meet that standard is the most direct way to address the legal risk. The article on what website accessibility is covers what WCAG requires in full, including the four core principles that organize the guidelines.

Which businesses need to meet web accessibility standards?

In the United States, Title III of the ADA applies to any business that serves the public, covering retail, hospitality, healthcare, financial services, real estate, and any other business where members of the public access goods or services. There is no minimum size threshold. Small businesses have faced accessibility legal action as frequently as large ones.

In the European Union, the European Accessibility Act requires businesses selling digital products and services to EU customers to meet accessibility standards from June 2025. The UK's Equality Act imposes equivalent obligations for businesses serving UK customers. Canada's Accessible Canada Act and Australia's Disability Discrimination Act create similar requirements in those markets.

For most businesses with a public-facing website, at least one of these frameworks applies. The practical implication is the same in each case: build to WCAG 2.1 Level AA and document the conformance.

What does an ADA compliant website require?

Meeting WCAG 2.1 Level AA means addressing accessibility across several areas of a website.

All meaningful images need descriptive alt text. A visitor using a screen reader should be able to understand what an image conveys from the text alternative alone. Decorative images that add no information should be marked so screen readers skip them.

Text must meet minimum color contrast ratios against its background. Body text requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1. Large text and UI components require at least 3 to 1. Low-contrast color schemes are one of the most common WCAG AA failures and one of the most straightforward to fix.

All form fields must have visible labels. Error messages must identify which field has a problem and explain how to fix it. Forms that only use color to indicate errors fail users who cannot distinguish colors.

All interactive elements, including navigation menus, dropdown selectors, and modal dialogs, must be fully operable by keyboard. A visitor who cannot use a mouse must be able to tab through every interactive element, open and close menus, and submit forms using the keyboard alone. The article on what website navigation is covers how navigation elements need to be structured to work for keyboard users and screen reader users.

Video content must have captions. Pre-recorded audio must have transcripts. Live video content that contains speech requires real-time captions. The article on what web design is covers the broader design decisions that shape how these elements are built and presented on a page.

How do you check if your website is ADA compliant?

A practical compliance check combines automated scanning with manual testing. Automated tools scan pages for the most common WCAG failures, including missing alt text, contrast failures, and structural problems. They are fast and can be run across an entire site, but they only catch around 30 to 40 percent of accessibility issues. The rest require human judgment.

Manual testing should cover keyboard navigation across every page and user flow. Tab through the entire site using only a keyboard. Check that focus indicators are visible at all times so you can always see which element is active. Confirm that dropdown menus open and close by keyboard. Verify that forms can be completed and submitted without a mouse.

Testing with a screen reader reveals problems that neither automated tools nor keyboard testing surface. Walking through the main pages of a site with a screen reader active shows whether the page reads in a logical order, whether images are described usefully, and whether interactive elements are labeled clearly.

For a formal compliance review, a professional accessibility audit covers all three testing methods and produces a report against WCAG 2.1 Level AA. This is useful before a site launch, after a significant redesign, or when legal risk needs to be assessed formally.

What is a website accessibility statement?

An accessibility statement is a page on a website that declares the conformance level the site aims to meet, identifies any known limitations, explains how users with disabilities can get help, and provides a way to report accessibility problems.

An accessibility statement does not guarantee legal protection. A site with an accessibility statement but with significant barriers is still an inaccessible site. The statement is a transparency measure that shows users with disabilities what to expect and how to get assistance. It is required by the EU Web Accessibility Directive for public sector websites and recommended across most accessibility frameworks.

A useful statement includes the WCAG version and conformance level the site targets, the date it was last reviewed, a contact method for users reporting barriers, and a brief description of any known issues that have not yet been resolved.

How does ADA compliance connect to SEO?

The practices that make a website ADA compliant overlap significantly with what search engines use to evaluate page quality. Alt text that describes images meaningfully provides context search engines cannot get from the image itself. A logical heading structure helps search engines parse how a page is organized. Keyboard-navigable pages with clean HTML tend to be more reliably crawlable.

Beyond the technical overlap, accessibility improvements reduce bounce rates and increase time on page for the visitors they serve. These behavioral signals contribute to how search engines assess whether a page is delivering value. The article on what SEO is covers how user experience signals connect to search rankings over time.

How WEMASY handles accessibility compliance

WEMASY's website builder generates valid, semantic HTML that screen readers and automated accessibility tools can parse correctly. Templates are tested against WCAG AA color contrast standards. Alt text fields are built into the image uploader so every image can have a description without code editing. Keyboard navigation works across all interactive elements in the builder's output by default.

See what is included at the WEMASY website builder or review plans on the pricing page.

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