While the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a thousand challenging curveballs for the world to navigate, the one positive that has emerged from the lockdown is the global shift towards embracing all things digital. If your brand has a strong online presence, this is great news for you, because there’s a much wider audience to reach. Just as your tasting room facilities should offer disability-friendly infrastructure, so too should your virtual facilities be welcoming to the one-fifth of the US population living with some form of disability. Indeed, without accessibility accommodations, those with disabilities cannot connect and shop with their favorite brands or companies, putting both them and your brand at a disadvantage. If you’ve never thought about website accessibility or even if you think you have “fixed this” with a widget, read on to learn what it is, how it works and why it matters now more than ever to offer access for all: 

What Is Website Accessibility?

Web accessibility means that your website is properly designed and coded so that people with disabilities can use it. You want any website visitor to be able to perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with your site’s content. After all, that’s the point! According to the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), “web accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the internet, including auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and visual”. Accessibility, alongside usability, are critical for developers and companies that want to create high-quality websites and web tools, and not exclude people from using their products and services.

How Does It Work? 

Making your website more accessible can manifest in various ways, and will be dependent on the content and layout of your winery’s unique website. However, there are some universally accepted updates that can be built into your site that will make it more friendly. For example, websites that have illustrative graphics and beautiful imagery should be loaded with an alternative text if an image couldn’t be viewed for some reason. This attribute helps with visual impairments, which require assistive technologies to consume web content. Another simpler example is offering subtitles on a video, so that a hearing-impaired visitor can still follow the content. One more example would be that some people with color blindness may not be able to differentiate normal texts from the clickable links because these elements are not contrasted enough. This problem can be solved by underlining the link text or creating a link button. Basically, there are many variations to each problem, which is why the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, also known as WCAG, have been developed to help brands and developers meet a list of standard requirements. 

Why Should I Care?

Firstly, because you should. The power of the web is in its universality and is fundamentally designed to work for all people, no matter their hardware, software, language, location, or ability. In fact, the beauty of the web is that it removes barriers to communication and interaction that many people face in the physical world. 

Secondly, be a leader of the pack! According to Google, there are around 7.53 billion people in the entire world, with 1 billion of those people with disabilities. By making your website accessible, you can reach more people with your products. Website accessibility can provide a strong competitive edge that can lead to more revenue for your winery. 

In addition (and very importantly!), when companies do not comply with accessibility guidelines, they expose themselves to a higher risk of lawsuits. Yup, you read that right. As the world forges on in adopting digital, no one should be left behind in being able to benefit directly from the advantages. That’s why, year on year, there has been a steady increase in lawsuits. In 2016, 262 ADA website and app lawsuits were filed, by 2017 there were 814, over 2300 in 2018, and over 2200 in 2019.  You can see where the trend is going. Retailers made up 60% of the 2019 cases, while the food service businesses made up 9%. It’s best practice to stay ahead of the curve in such matters and spend the money now to avoid potentially huge blows down the line.

How Can I Make My Website More Accessible? 

To make your website more accessible, start by becoming ADA Compliant. What does this mean? ADA stands for the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 2010, the Department of Justice (DOJ) published the ADA Standards for Accessible Design, stating that all electronic and information technology must be accessible to people with disabilities. According to InteractiveAccessibility.com, the ADA standards apply to commercial and public entities that have “places of public accommodation” which includes the internet. The DOJ is currently determining the specific regulations but that does not mean website discrimination will be tolerated. This law affects all Americans with disabilities and their friends, families, and caregivers, private employers with 15 or more employees, businesses operating for the benefit of the public and all state and local government agencies. If you want to comply, the ADA encourages self-regulation of accessibility standards and the Department of Justice is currently developing regulations to provide specific guidance to the entities covered by the ADA. Organizations are encouraged to use the WCAG 2.1 level AA guidelines as a guide on how to become accessible until the DOJ defines the regulations.

How Do I Make My Website ADA Compliant?

At Highway 29 Creative, we provide an ADA Compliance Service for wineries, in order to help you connect and engage with consumers who have a disability and are passionate about wine. Our innovative and affordable solution easily adjusts your website code with AI-powered machine-learning.  

By scanning and analyzing your website, our AI technology identifies non-compliant features and then adjusts your website’s code to meet specific ADA and WCAG 2.1 standards. 

This industry leading technology automatically updates the code of your website every 24 hours and impressive code changes including adding alt-tags to your code using AI machine learning. There are a lot of widgets and plugins available on the market, but none are as comprehensive nor keep your website continually updated daily. 

Our streamlined onboarding process is completed within a matter of days so that we can implement our solution and have our AI technology running on your website quickly. Our solution will also include an accessibility statement that includes our interface’s capabilities as well as information on browser compatibility. 

Ready To Add Accessibility To Your Website?

Our affordable and fast accessibility solution is only $70 per month and provides the most up to date and comprehensive tools on the market for the wine industry. Subscribe to our service now and we will follow up via email within 24 hours to begin the installation on your website.