Is your website—and any documents it offers to users—in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)?
In the U.S., government agencies (including state departments of health, many of whom we serve) are currently ensuring their websites comply with new accessibility rules issued in 2024 by the U.S. Department of Justice. Even if your organization is not a government agency, we recommend compliance with the same guidelines. After all, they ensure your website is accessible to all users. (And web accessibility lawsuits can happen to any organization.)
We’re drawing attention to one of the new rules in particular—the accessibility of Word, Excel, and PDF documents on websites. All of these documents, with some exceptions, must meet WCAG 2.1, Level AA. For senior living and senior care websites, this would include things like activity calendars, menus, price lists, etc. That means that many existing documents living on websites may need to be recreated.
Resources
Adobe recommends starting with the underlying accessible document (Word or Excel) and then converting it to PDF. Documents with a form fill may need more work. Refer to Adobe’s What is an Accessible PDF? article.
Guidance from Microsoft: Create Accessible Office Documents.
A word of caution
We urge you to avoid vendors selling a group of products known as “accessibility overlays.” These vendors may exaggerate the capabilities of their products. Even worse, overlays may introduce accessibility barriers that you did not have to begin with. For example, the Federal Trade Commission required software vendor accessiBe to pay $1 million for deceptive claims that its web accessibility tool could make any website compliant with WCAG. Refer to the Overlay Fact Sheet, issued by a group of internet accessibility experts, for more information.
IlluminAge has a long-standing commitment to ADA compliance. However, standards change every two to three years, so it’s important to make sure that you are always in compliance. We communicate these changes to our clients regularly and are here to help you sort through these and other website accessibility matters. Please contact us to learn more.
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