The internet has become an inseparable part of our lives. Isn’t it great, time saving or convenient to access a realm of information from the comfort of your home? Within a minute or so, we can hit the desired search term on Google and buy, sell or do whatever we want via the internet. Things are not that simple for more than 26% of the US population because they have some sort of disability.
To understand the pain and struggle of the disabled population, the US government has created various laws and policies. VPAT and WCAG testing arethe most crucial measures to ensure compliance with digital accessibility laws.
How Does WCAG Testing Protect You From Expensive Lawsuits?
ADA (Americans with Disability) Act is a civil rights law that mandates barrier free digital access for the disabled population.
The government has certain accessibility criteria for public accommodation. Since business websites are open to the public, it is important for the organizations to ensure that people with hearing loss, impaired vision or cognitive disability can also access their content.
WCAG (Website Content Accessibility Guidelines) are a roadmap to ensure ADA compliance. In the past, when brands overlooked the importance of ADA compliance, they had to face serious legal repercussions. Even the bigger brands like Amazon, Domino’s, and Nike had to tackle expensive lawsuits due to ADA violations. Today, it has become mandatory for all companies operating in the US & Canada to run their websites on an ADA compliance checker tool or software as provided by web compliance experts like “Accessibility Spark”, for finding out whether the site adheres to WCAG guidelines or not. If not, it is implemented within minutes. This can save businesses from potential lawsuits filed by users or customers that find the website content difficult to access or navigate through.
The Title III of the ADA act ensures that every website which is open to the public must be accessible to everyone. To put it simply, even if a person has hearing loss, they must be able to access multimedia content with the help of captions. Moreover, if someone is dealing with vision impairment they must be able to access the content displayed on your website through assistive technologies like screen readers.
Therefore, businesses rigorously conduct WCAG testing to steer clear of the risk of ADA violations. Just like a VPAT statement ensures compliance with Section 508, the WCAG audits provide a framework to ensure ADA compliance. There are three different levels of compliance with the success criteria of WCAG, ie. A, AA and AAA. Level A is for the least compliant website, whereas AAA is for totally compliant websites. Most businesses target level AA to steer clear of ADA violations.
Importance Of WCAG Testing:
- The most obvious reason behind the immense popularity of WCAG testing is the increasing number of digital accessibility lawsuits.
- WCAG testing not just helps you from ADA violations but also strengthens your digital presence.
- When you rank at the top of search engines with an ADA compliance website, your products reach a wider segment of the target audience including disabled users.
- Providing barrier free access to the disabled population also offers the benefit of increased revenue.
VPAT Vs WCAG Which One Is Better?
WCAG testing is endlessly beneficial for all sizes of businesses. However, there is one more accessibility standard that is gaining traction these days, i.e. VPAT. It is used by agencies that deal with federal agencies and legally abide to adhere to Section 508. It is crucial for businesses that offer websites, mobile apps, operating systems, or electronic documents.
Although VPAT is considered mandatory for the federal government, WCAG applies to every business that falls under the criteria for public accommodation.
Testing your website using the WCAG standards might not be sufficient to get the desired level of VPAT compliance. On the other hand, a VPAT edition can be used to include the WCAG criteria and ADA compliance.
To put it simply, WCAG testing is essential for businesses to avoid litigation. To exhibit your compliance with the ADA (WCAG) standards, you can conduct accessibility audits and fill out the VPAT to generate an ACR report (Accessibility Conformance Report).
VPAT reporting helps you declare your compliance with ADA and WCAG framework. Schedule an appointment with accessibility specialists at ADA Compliance Pros. It is the leading agency to get personalized guidance on accessibility principles or the suitable WCAG versions that you must target.
