How to Make Online Documents ADA Compliant
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Online documents, like PDFs, PowerPoints, Microsoft Word Documents, and spreadsheets, are required to be accessible to individuals with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Yet, many of these documents remain inaccessible, preventing individuals with disabilities from accessing them. Below, we’ll discuss how to make web-delivered documents accessible and ADA-compliant.
Digital accessibility has become a growing priority among many of today’s businesses, and organizations are taking proactive steps to ensure their digital content is accessible to individuals with disabilities. Yet, one area that’s often overlooked in these initiatives is web-delivered documents — such as PDFs, reports, Microsoft Word documents, and forms — which are equally essential to accessible user experiences.
Despite frequently falling under the radar, these documents are subject to the same accessibility standards outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), meaning they must be accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Below, we’ll explore exactly what legal requirements online documents must meet and how to make your PDFs ADA-compliant.
Before we jump into that, however, here is a quick review of the ADA.
The Americans with Disabilities Act: A Quick Review
Signed into law in 1990, the ADA is a civil rights act that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities and ensures their equal access to public spaces. As the world becomes more digital, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has repeatedly stated that the ADA applies to online spaces, meaning that they must be accessible to individuals with disabilities.
While the ADA itself doesn’t include technical standards for accessibility, it does enforce those outlined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) — specifically WCAG 2.1 Level AA. These guidelines operate under four key principles: content must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust (more commonly known as the POUR principles). These guidelines apply to all digital content, including websites, mobile apps, and web-delivered documents.
ADA compliance is required for public entities, government agencies, and most private businesses — those considered places of public accommodation like retail stores, hotels, banks, movie theaters, educational institutions, etc. If any of these organizations offer digital content, it must meet accessibility standards.
What is Document Accessibility?
Put simply, document accessibility is about making online documents (such as PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoints, etc.) accessible to individuals with disabilities. Doing so ensures users with disabilities can access and use this content.
How to Create Accessible, ADA-Compliant Online Documents in 11 Steps
Creating an online document that’s compliant with the ADA starts in the creation process. Not only does this help save you time, but it also streamlines your path to ADA compliance and integrates accessibility best practices into your content creation process.
With that in mind, let’s discuss how to create ADA-compliant documents.
1. Look at Document Properties
First, look at your document’s properties, which can be found under the ‘Properties’ tab. Whether you’re working with a Microsoft document, PowerPoint presentation, PDF, or spreadsheet, the author field needs to include properties such as your company name, address, and phone number. Your document’s reading language should also be set to your primary language.
2. Add Alt Text
All of your non-text content — images, images of text, graphs, charts, shapes, or other visual files — must include alternative text (or alt text). Alt text is a written description of a non-text object that can be read by assistive technologies, including screen readers. This ensures individuals with visual impairments (such as blindness or low vision) or those who rely on assistive technology can still interact with and understand the non-text content.
Carefully review your web-delivered documents and ensure all non-text content includes alt text. In some document creation platforms, you simply right-click the object and select the alt text menu. For other programs, you can add alt text by simply clicking the image and writing your description.
3. Review Your Headings
Be sure all headings in your online document follow a logical reading order (H1, H2, H3, and H4). While it may be tempting to go out of order for visual appeal, doing so can confuse screen reader users, making it difficult to understand the logical flow of your content.
4. Add Descriptive Text to Hyperlinks
The way your hyperlinks are formatted also impacts document accessibility. Anytime you include a link to an external source, be sure the hyperlink describes what you’re linking to.
For example, rather than putting a hyperlink on “here,” which doesn’t describe what or where the link will take a user, include it in more descriptive text, such as “Read more about digital accessibility here.” Making your hyperlinks more descriptive can help minimize confusion and create a better user experience.
5. Include Captions or Transcripts for Audio Files
If your web-delivered document contains audio files, it must include closed captions or a transcript (or both). This ensures users with auditory disabilities, such as deafness or hard of hearing, can interact with audio content.
6. Keep Your Writing Simple
Document language also plays a role in their accessibility. If your content is full of complex abbreviations or technical jargon, it diminishes its readability and overall accessibility. Focus on keeping your writing clear and simple, not just in your PDF content but across all your web pages. Doing so enhances readability, something that’s particularly beneficial for individuals with cognitive disabilities, and improves the user experience for all.
7. Ensure Compatibility with Assistive Tech
Not all users use a mouse to interact with online content. Many users with disabilities rely on assistive technology — such as screen readers, text-to-speech software, and keyboard commands — to browse online content. Just as your website and mobile app need to be compatible with these devices, so do your web-delivered documents.
Conducting screen reader testing on your documents (either using screen reader software or with actual screen reader users) can help you determine how compatible your documents are with these devices. You can then make necessary changes to improve the user experience.
8. Review Your Document Tags
One of the most important parts of creating ADA-compliant PDFs and documents is using the right tags. PDF tags are essentially behind-the-scenes labels that are added to PDF documents to provide structure and identify content types such as headings, paragraphs, images, forms, or lists.
Adding these tags to your PDF files helps assistive technologies better interpret your document’s structure, making it more accessible to these users. For example, tagging headings as ‘headers’ helps screen readers recognize them as important, enabling users to jump to different sections more easily. Tagging PDFs this way improves readability, conforms with WCAG standards, and makes documents more usable for everyone.
9. Check for Accessibility
The best way to determine if your web-delivered documents are ADA-compliant is to conduct an accessibility check on them. Using an accessibility checker or document remediation services like AudioEye’s can help you determine where ADA violations exist in your online documents, giving you the ability to remedy them before they become a bigger issue.
However, there are some accessibility issues that cannot be detected by software alone. Consider supplementing automated testing with human testing from accessibility experts and individuals from the disability community. Have these individuals interact with your web-delivered documents and highlight any usability issues. You can then fix these more complex issues prior to launching your documents, providing a more accessible experience for your users from the beginning.
10. Save Your Files the Right Way
To keep your documents accessible during conversion processes, they need to be saved with the right settings. For example, if you’re working with a Word document, make sure you save it with the .docx file extension. If you’re converting a document to a PDF on a Mac, select the file type labeled ‘Best for electronic distribution and accessibility’ or ‘Document structure tags for accessibility’ for PC. Saving your files in this way ensures the accessibility features are kept intact throughout the conversion and publishing process.
11. Regularly Review Your Files
Finally, regularly review your files to ensure ongoing ADA compliance and conformance with WCAG standards. Remember, any time you edit or update a PDF or other online document, you may be inadvertently introducing new accessibility issues. Rather than wait for these issues to become bigger, regularly review your documents to ensure any new accessibility issues are quickly addressed.
AudioEye: Helping You Create Accessible Web-Delivered Documents
Creating accessible online documents isn’t just about improving accessibility — it’s a requirement for ADA compliance. Web-delivered documents, including PDFs, reports, and forms, are all a critical part of the digital experience and must meet the accessibility standards outlined in WCAG 2.1 Level AA.
Here’s the good news: Creating ADA-compliant PDFs, Word Documents, PowerPoints, and spreadsheets is easier than you think. Adding alt text, organizing headings in a logical order, and providing clear link descriptions — each feature adds to the overall accessibility of digital content and helps you fulfill legal obligations.
And with AudioEye, this process is even more straightforward with our Document Remediation Services, which is designed to help you quickly achieve document accessibility at a cost that works for you.
Ready to get started on your path to ADA-compliant documents? Contact us to learn more about our Document Remediation Services and other accessibility services.
Interested in learning more about AudioEye? Schedule a demo today and see how our services help you create more accessible, ADA-compliant documents.
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