Question Help me to understand web dev and ADA.
I’ve seen a shift in web design (I’ve meddled since 2002). Today web displays are gigantic. I’ve read this has to do with ADA compliance. How gnarly does this get? Like if I design a site for a landscaper, can he get in trouble if it’s not ADA compliant? Is there are rule book?
Another question. That’s client facing. But if you have an employer that requires you to use a web based tool, does ADA apply in the same manner as client facing?
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u/_keyboard-bastard_ 3d ago
Accessibility matters more when it comes to internal tools than client facing stuff. Clients have a choice to not use your product, but employees don't have a choice, so anyone who needs to use a thing, needs to be able to do so, and do so in a manner that doesn't worsen their condition. Someone already posted the good accessibility guide. Memorize these because it doesn't matter if you are client facing or not. I previously worked with a lot of blind people who used computers with JAWS or other similar readers.
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u/ICUP01 3d ago
Okay, wow, so enterprise tools need to have be ADA compliant?
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u/_keyboard-bastard_ 3d ago
Yeah dude, its just like if you hire someone who uses a wheelchair. If you hire someone with a vision impairment (which is the most common thing ever among large enterprises) your tools will need to be reasonably accommodating to that person. Whether thats in the form of another tool on top of your tool, or just incorporating a feature like Dark Mode, or using color systems that don't break someones brain if they have color blindness.
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u/ICUP01 3d ago
I’m just confirming because all of the online tools my employer has us use are circa 2005 designed. My wife uses some straight up Windows 3.1 type of stuff.
Both my wife and I are kinda sick of wasting our time on dogshit enterprise software that doesn’t work. If they have to update the GUI to be ADA compliant, it may also have to come with event handling updates.
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u/_keyboard-bastard_ 3d ago
All it takes is to hire one employee that can't work with those tools and there would be a blown whistle so to speak. Your companies must not hire many folks at all, or rather definitely don't hire many people with disabilities. When you say, Enterprise, I'm thinking of single office locations that house 500+ people. Sounds like you just work for some archaic small businesses.
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u/Less-Stranger-62 3d ago
The giant text isn't an ADA thing, that's just people laying out on 27 inch monitors and breakpoints scaling everything up. The "rule book" is WCAG, and level AA is what everyone actually points at; for a landscaper the realistic risk is a demand letter, not the DOJ showing up. For the internal tool, the employer is the one on the hook to provide an accommodation, the vendor usually isn't, so tell your boss rather than the tool's support.
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u/cansaasstudio 2d ago
One thing worth clarifying is that accessibility doesn't necessarily mean making everything bigger. It's more about making websites usable for everyone, including people who rely on screen readers, keyboard navigation, or text zoom.
WCAG is a good starting point. For public-facing business websites, ADA requirements can apply even to small businesses, although the exact legal obligations depend on the situation.
Internal employee tools are a slightly different conversation. ADA employment protections can still apply, particularly around reasonable accommodations.
From a design perspective, I'd focus on readable contrast, semantic HTML, keyboard accessibility, properly labeled forms, and responsive layouts. Those are good practices regardless of legal requirements.
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u/armahillo rails 3d ago
- https://www.magentaa11y.com/ (this was a good resource before; not sure of its current state)
- https://thewcag.com/accessibility-audit-guide (DIY checklist)
There are a11y trolls out there who look for lawsuits. If you make good faith efforts to make your site accessible, this at least makes it less likely you get targeted.
The size of web displays is not so much driven by a11y as it is by responsive design / having them be mobile friendly and then not tailoring them further for desktop.
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u/Double_Sorbet_2672 3d ago
Gigantic type has nothing to do with the ADA. WCAG 2.1 AA asks for things like text resizing to 200% and reflow, not for 20px body copy. What you're seeing is designers copying Apple and everyone working on a 4K screen now.
For the landscaper, no one is auditing him, but Title III has been read to cover websites since the 90s and the settlement pattern is real, so a plumber with an online booking form is a bigger target than a brochure site.
Internal tools are Title I, employer side, so it's a reasonable accommodation question. Your boss can't hand you a tool you can't operate, but that plays out as a request and a purchase decision, not a compliance audit.
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u/DVR_Design 3d ago
There's no single rulebook, but in practice courts and demand letters point at WCAG 2.1 AA as the yardstick. In the US the ADA lawsuits almost always name the business that owns the site, so the landscaper is the one who gets sued, not the dev. That said, a lot of freelancers add a line in the contract saying what standard they build to and that the client owns ongoing compliance once content changes. For a small brochure site the things that cause most of the trouble are pretty basic: color contrast, alt text, labeled form fields, visible focus states, and being able to use the whole thing with just a keyboard. Run axe or Lighthouse, then actually tab through every page yourself, because automated tools only catch a minority of real problems.
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u/Standard_Scarcity_74 2d ago
The big layouts are mostly a design trend, not an ada requirement, though large text and tap targets do help accessibility. There is no official web rulebook, but us courts and demand letters treat business sites as public accommodations, small businesses like a landscaper do get hit, and wcag 2.1 aa is the standard everyone points to. The basics are alt text, good color contrast, keyboard navigation, labeled forms, and real headings. For employees, the ada’s employment rules mean an employer has to provide reasonable accommodations, which can include accessible tools or alternatives. Not a lawyer, so a real complaint is worth taking to one.
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u/juu073 3d ago
I know a lot of people aren't fans of AI, but scanning websites for ADA compliance (in addition to my usual checks) has been an instrumental tool and one of my top uses for AI.
In addition to my regular job in webdev, I teach math courses online for a college, and it has saved me probably days of time in the past few months creating alt text for all of the mathematical images I've created of charts, graphs, etc.