ADA compliance and accessible school websites aren't about scare tactics, laws, regulations, or OCR complaints. It's about the importance of inclusivity, and how when we focus on making our content available to everyone, we're not only helping those with disabilities, but everyone. Yes, everyone — including your school or district. 

The ADA and web guidelines weren't developed for those with disabilities in mind...but all website users in mind. This means that implementing ADA requirements enhances and simplifies the website experience for everyone.

Here are six (easy!) website accessibility best practices every school should follow to get closer to ADA compliance.

1. Have a Responsive Website

One critical aspect of modern, accessible web design is responsiveness. Responsive websites adapt seamlessly to various devices and screen sizes, ensuring a consistent and accessible experience for all users, regardless of how they access your site.

This is especially important for individuals with disabilities who may rely on assistive technologies, keyboard navigation, or specific display settings. Finalsite launched its first responsive website in 2012 (the first in the industry!), and since then, we have urged all schools and districts to “go responsive” because of the prevalence of mobile device usage.

2. Add Alt Text to Every Image

alt text (Alternative Text) is essential for website visitors who use assistive technology, such as screen readers, and is first and foremost necessary for web accessibility. Screen readers will read alt text to users who are visually impaired so that they have an experience equal to those that have sight. A visitor with sight sees a classroom with children. Without alt text, a person who is blind hears: image 345781.

This can be a very time-consuming and tedious project, but fortunately, Finalsite’s Resources and Posts Module have tools and settings in place to make this easier. For example, in Resources, when you upload an image and add the alt text, you only have to add it that first time, and it will be automatically added to any place you use that image. (YES!)

Additionally, alt text is GREAT for SEO. Yes, adding alt text to your images can improve your search performance. Search engines and other robots cannot interpret images, but images can play a crucial part in how people interpret a particular web page. Alt text solves this by providing text that is read by search engines. When Googlebot or other search engine crawlers inspect a page, images with properly formatted alt text contribute to how the page is indexed and where it ranks.

Pro Tips for Adding alt Text:

• During the redesign process, don’t bulk-migrate images, only add new ones. Chances are, you didn’t follow the most recent WCAG guidelines during your last redesign, and you’re going to end up with a ton of images without alt text on your new site.
   
• If ADA-related compliance is a top priority, ensure you set up admin rights to only enable super-users you trust with adding alt text to publish content.
   
• Don’t overthink it! Read this blog for some best practices on adding alt text.
   
• Keep in mind that not ALL images will need alt text. Not every image will need alt text. If an image is truly decorative (think of how a line might be used to divide content), then it should have null/empty alt text (alt="" or alt).

Some believe that just requiring alt text in the product is enough to "check the box", but just putting text into that field doesn't do anything unless it's meaningful. We encourage you to do things for the right reason.

3. Make Sure Your Links Provide Context

“Click here” and “view now,” have never been at the top of the list of web design UX best practices, or high-converting call-to-action buttons. However, they’re often a crutch in moments when we lack creativity and simply “need to get a link on the site.” 

If you’ve ever listened to a screen reader announce the links on a website, you’d immediately feel compelled to update your site. Most screen readers have a feature to announce the links on a given page — so a list of “click here” links isn’t helpful. This type of structure is confusing to screen reading technology and most website visitors.

Re-thinking how you present links on your website actually provides the opportunity to lower bounce rates, improve the user experience, and increase conversions because you are providing context to what will happen when they click.

PRO TIP: When structuring your links, opt to change your “click here” links with the piece of content they will receive when they click, or create a full sentence. For example, a “click here” link under a heading for the school calendar can be changed to “click here for our academic calendar,” or just “academic calendar.”

4. Follow Standard Page Structure

Screen reading technology reads pages in a logical order: H1 (Header 1), H2, H3, etc, which means appropriately structuring your page helps people relying on the use of assistive technology more effectively understand your content.

However, in all cases, this is also a best practice for providing scannable and easy-to-digest content. No one enjoys reading paragraphs of text, especially on mobile devices. 

When building your website pages, follow this simple outline to improve the readability of your content for everyone:

• H1: This is your page title. It is important for SEO and to help website visitors identify where they are on your site off-the-bat. You should only have one H1.
   
• H2: This is your page’s subtitle, value proposition, subheader, etc. Depending on the length of your page you may have more than one (like this blog post!), but it is okay to also have just one.
   
• H3: These are used to divide up chunks and segments of content. Having two or more on a page to break up a paragraph, lists, etc. is helpful.
   
• H4 and H5: If you find yourself needing your H4 or H5, be sure they are used for structural purposes and not design purposes.

5. Test Your Links Before Publishing

A simple, but often a forgotten step in the content publishing process is checking out links. Broken links make content inaccessible and downright confusing (and frustrating) for all website visitors.

6. Don’t Use PDFs

Need I say more? Use HTML whenever possible. It allows you to create more accessible content that can be easily updated as needed.

Back in 2016, I wrote an entire blog on why PDFs are never a good idea for school and district websites — from responsiveness and accessibility issues to the cumbersome nature of adding them to your site. You can read that blog here.

Key Takeaway

Web accessibility isn’t just about adhering to WCAG guidelines to avoid a fine — web accessibility is about helping all schools and districts improve the overall experience on their site.