Your staffing website may be beautifully designed. Load lightning-fast. Be optimized for mobile. And drive tremendous ROI for your agency.
But is your website ADA-compliant?
If not, you could be:
- alienating job seekers and other potential site visitors with disabilities
- missing out on a huge potential talent pool of 61 million disabled Americans
- exposing yourself to non-compliance lawsuits with first-offense fines of up to $75,000!
Even the most attractive, high-tech sites can have compliance issues.
Here are the most common ADA compliance issues we see in today’s staffing websites:
- No alt tags on images and non-text content. A compliant website includes text alternatives for all non-text content, including elements like pictures or any type of content not readable by a screen reader.
- Lack of heading hierarchy. Properly structured, consistent heading hierarchy is necessary for individuals using assistive technology. Organizing content headings with H1, H2 and H3 tags helps screen readers correctly interpret what content comes first, as well as which types of content are most important on a page.
- Non-compliant plugins. For a site to be compliant, its plugins must also meet WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards.
- Improperly structured navigation. This is important for people using screen readers, as well as those with limited mobility who are tabbing through your site. We frequently see issues such as:
- Top tier pages on site navigation not being clickable
- Multiple “overview” pages on a website – these can confuse assistive technology
- Missing or inconsistent tab index – may cause skipping over menu items
- Too little color contrast. Sufficient color contrast (e.g., on a CTA button that changes color when you hover over it) is essential for color-blind individuals to easily navigate through a site.
- Small font sizes. A compliant site uses a sufficiently large font size so copy is easily readable.
- Inability to skip navigation. This lack of functionality can be frustrating for people using screen readers. Without it, users have to listen to the entire menu every time they navigate to a new page (which may cause higher bounce rates).
- Video without transcript. Videos on compliant sites also include accessible transcripts or closed-captioning.
- Job board / career portal can’t be navigated with a screen reader. This is a key issue for website compliance as it relates to discrimination against job seekers with disabilities.
Concerned your staffing website may be out of compliance with WCAG?
Our WCAG compliance experts are here to help you navigate this complex issue:
- Check out our ADA-compliant staffing websites and Job Board solution. Our goal is to protect our clients by ensuring WCAG AA compliance for all new Starter and Custom websites we build, as well as our career portal software.
- Learn more about the guidelines impacting ADA-compliance for staffing websites.
- Understand the qualities of a WCAG 2.0-compliant staffing website.
- Read more about our ADA-compliant websites.
- Connect with one of our marketing educators to learn more.
Please note: The information in this blog post is for educational purposes only; it should not be considered legal advice.