The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, and with its passing the ADA ushered in a new era of civil rights protections for people with a variety of disabilities. However, the first webpage was not launched until the middle of 1991, so no provisions for online environment accessibility were included in the first draft of the ADA. While the internet has experienced a global, meteoric rise in popularity since the implementation of the ADA, the Department of Justice (DOJ), the enforcing agency of the ADA, has published several guiding documents to help make sure that both state and local government websites are accessible to Deaf individuals under Title II. The DOJ also provides guidance under Title III for public and private business websites to make sure they are accessible to Deaf individuals as well.
ADA Compliance in an Online Environment
While ADA laws are very explicit when discussing reasonable accommodations for Deaf or hard of hearing individuals when a physical site is involved, ADA compliance of websites is a much grayer area. Despite ADA laws undergoing several amendments in 2008, there are still no hard and fast rules regarding making websites accessible for Deaf individuals. The one redeeming quality of the internet is that most of it is in written form, which is accessible to Deaf or hard of hearing individuals. However, with social media, streaming, and video sharing there are still components of applications or websites, like audio content, that are inaccessible.
Often times, if a website is deemed inaccessible to a Deaf or hard of hearing individual, the case would have to be ruled over by the DOJ, but with no federal rules currently in place to monitor compliance, it’s hard to decide whether or not a website has to follow accessibility rules governed by the ADA. While many would think the issue of accessibility is clear, it is often a murky area. Discrimination lawsuits are regularly filed regarding equal accessibility to online services, in fact in 2020, over two thousand lawsuits were brought before federal judges to determine whether a website meets ADA compliance. While no website is going to be 100% accessible, reasonable accommodation must be made to comply with ADA laws. There are websites that must absolutely comply with accessibility, those being websites run by state and local government as well as any website that provides a service or public accommodation.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
While the ADA does not have specific accessibility requirements for websites, the Department of Justice has required all websites to conform to the web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG). The WCAG is a blueprint of designing inclusive websites and takes many things into consideration when designing websites including low vision, neurological and cognitive limitations as well as Deafness. The WCAG has vast resources and clearly defined guidelines that ask four principles to guide website designers to make sure their website is accessible to all.
The first principle is if website information is presentable to users in their preferred communication. Does non text content have an option to a text alternative? Do live recordings or time-based media have alternative options or the ability to caption or sign language interpreters? The second principle relates to if the website is operable. Do users of the website have keyboard functionality? If there is a speech component to interacting with the website (such as voice recording using a microphone), is there an alternative option? Do real-time or prerecorded videos have the option to stop, pause, or adjust playback time? The third principle discusses if the website is understandable. Is the website in an understandable language or is it available for translation? Are abbreviations appropriately used in text content—meaning would a majority of readers understand what the abbreviation means? For example, most people would know that ‘Mr.’ means ‘mister’, so this would be an appropriate abbreviation, but using ‘rm’ for ‘room’ would not, as it is not a well-known abbreviation. Does the website provide input assistance to help, check, find, and reverse errors when filling out forms? The final principle focuses on whether the website is robust. Website content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted by most website’s users and compatible with assistive technologies.
Best Practices for Website Accessibility for the Deaf
When making a website accessible specifically to Deaf or hard of hearing individuals, there are websites that provide best practices. The first step goes into Deaf culture history and understanding that many people experience varying levels of hearing loss and this must be taken into consideration as different Deaf or hard of hearing individuals require different accommodations for a website to be considered accessible to them.
If your website is specifically geared towards Deaf individuals within Deaf culture, an American Sign Language interpreter included on any non-text content could be ideal for your targeted website. However, if you are wishing to make your website universally accessible to all, including Deaf and hard of hearing individuals, captions and subtitles will work just as well. Some best practices for captioning and subtitles include having a human proof or transcribe the video content before including it. Another best practice includes making the captions sync as closely as possible to video content so that it minimizes miscommunication. A final best practice is to provide simple access to caption controls—make them visible, clearly labeled, and easy to control.
Conclusion
Despite being a major part of American culture and daily life, online websites still require compliance guidelines to make sure that they are accessible under ADA guidelines. There are even website checkers that allow website owners to see if their website is accessibility compliant, which is a huge step in creating an inclusive online environment. If you are interested in bridging the communication gap and creating an inclusive and accessible environment for all, reach out to Unspoken Language Services, a professional ASL interpreting service provider.
