CASE STUDY: Website Rx and ADA

Overview: Our client, a full-service mid-sized firm located in New England, had recently launched a new website that was designed and developed by another agency. It was artistic and well-branded, but when the Director of Marketing & Business Development asked if the completed site was ADA compliant, the developers admitted that was not part of the design and development considerations.

Approach: The LISI team launched its two-prong accessibility tool and performed a full front- and back-end website audit to evaluate any accessibility issues to be addressed by development.

Challenge: The marketing leader performed substantial research to educate herself and the firm that an ADA compliant site needed to be a priority. The site had to be accessible to everyone, including the 25% of the population that is experiencing a disability, but this effort required a new development team with deep experience in this area. It also raised the question, was everything else with the site development up to snuff? The front-end of the site looked great, but were issues lurking on the back-end?

Result: The accessibility tool brought the site to WCAG 2.1 AA-level accessibility, and the firm was pleased to learn that the website was largely well-constructed. In addition to several coding and site structure improvements, the LISI team recommended a course of action to remediate hundreds of PDFs and videos to make them accessible to clients, prospects, and other website visitors who use screen-reader technology to interact with websites. With these improvements, the firm can be confident that the site is highly functional and usable to all.