7 Tips to Design ADA-Compliant Financial Services Websites

Banking and investment have recently changed a lot in the US, where more than 40% of adults access online financial services. With this ride in demand and need for online financial services comes the increased need for accessible web content.

Despite only viewable pages of banking and financial sites considered to be places of public accommodation, only 1% of the most popular sites on the internet are compliant. And with more than 25% of US adults living with some disability, ensuring your site is compliant helps avoid ending up in expensive ADA lawsuits.

There is no need to worry if you do not know how to make your site ADA-compliant. We at ADA Site Compliance are here to help. We are the #1 source for all ADA website compliance issues and will check your site for accessibility while you focus on doing what you do best.

Top 7 Best Practices to Adopt to Design ADA-Compliant Financial Services Websites

Here is a list of the seven best practices financial services should adopt while designing their website to ensure they adhere to website compliance standards:

• 1. Conduct Automated and User Testing

  

  The first step involves assessing the current accessibility level of your website. Automated user testing is especially a better option for checking sites with hundreds or thousands of template product pages, which is tedious to perform manually.

  An automated test involves analyzing accessibility status based on real-time data. Upon completing the analysis, recommendations are made for the entire site to be easily integrated into the overall website design.

  However, your site requires user testing because automated testing cannot flag every WCAG violation. It is where usability and digital accessibility experts and people who use assistive technologies daily manually test your site for accessibility issues.

  The best user interface and testing program for a website is performed with the help of experts from:

  • Local activist groups or nonprofit organizations working with people with disabilities
  • The disability community
  • Friends, family members, or work colleagues using assistive technology or who have disabilities
  • Testers from different databases

• 2. Simple Fonts and Texts are Always Better

  With the website’s text size, font, and style speaking a lot of your brand, its consistent and logical use helps prevent any confusion among site visitors. And to prevent confusion, it is always better to:

  • Use bold or italic text for important points
  • Avoid using large paragraphs, as it can be confusing for users with dyslexia to read
  • Divide information into bulleted lists

• 3. Clear and Concise Navigation

  You never know who may visit your financial website. That is why it should be accessible to users with auditory, mental, visual, physical, and visual impairments too. So your website needs some changes if users with disabilities cannot navigate the website using the help of only the tab button.

  These four tips help ensure your site content is easy to navigate:

  • Placing important information in the exact location on all pages
  • Ensuring disabled users can quickly find specific information on your website
  • Linearly presenting information on the website so that users with screen readers can easily scan the page from top to bottom
  • Having a “Skip Navigation’ feature at the top of the site so that screen readers can quickly find and access specific content

• 4. Using Proper Color Contrast

  

  Accessibility issues due to poor color contrast may arise in websites that focus more on using colors consistent with their branding instead of using colors that promote effective communication. Users with cognitive disabilities, the color blind, and some other users with disabilities may find it challenging to access a site if the text and background colors are not in proper contrast.

  Some tips to consider to ensure proper contrast involve:

  • Maintaining a color-contrast ratio of 4.5:1 between all text and background colors
  • Using high-contrast visual aids or color schemes
  • Not depending solely on text of different colors for communicating messages

• 5. Including Descriptions on All Website Social Media Assets

  Your financial website audio and video assets determine your website accessibility. Accessing your website’s audio and visual content can be challenging for users with visual or cognitive impairments without the proper measures.

  Including descriptions of all audio and video files embedded in the website helps improve your website compliance. It is because it will help visually impaired users understand the purpose of all the website audio and video content.

  The following tips can improve your site accessibility:

  • Adding text captions, subtitles, and alternative text for images makes it easier for screen readers to read
  • Including audio descriptions and subtitles in multiple languages
  • Adding audio cues signaling changes in setting, color, gestures, and other visual elements

• 6. Include Labels and Inline Messaging in Website Forms

  Most users with disabilities resort to using screen readers to access ADA-friendly websites. So placing help text inline error messages below fields will help ensure visitors fill out forms. This helps in two ways:

  • The first is visitors can quickly contact your website through the form
  • Secondly, inline errors help users understand how to repair any incorrect fields

• 7. Maintaining Proper Website Content Format

  Ensuring the alt text in the website copy is as straightforward as possible lets visitors easily access the content they need. The best way to achieve this is by dividing the website text into headings and subheadings and correctly positioning them on the web page.

  Lastly, ensure all abbreviations and acronyms used in the website are appropriately punctuated using periods for better readability. And do not forget to have a developer review your website code once the website is ready. Not only should your website comply with all laws, but it should also function properly without a code.

More About ADA and Website Accessibility

The ADA law requires that users with disabilities should be able to access public physical structures with the help of wheelchairs and ramps. In addition, it requires that users with disabilities be able to access websites easily.

This means that users with impairments should be able to read, use, and navigate page elements of the website easily without any problems. This is achieved with the right website color contrasts, alt tags, website navigation, and proper markup and coding.

What are the ADA Web Content Accessibility Guidelines?

The web accessibility standards WCAG 2.1 are presently the highest in the US for website accessibility. It is challenging to attain Title III compliance as the law does not specify any website accessibility procedure.

However, despite no official ADA standard, web content accessibility guidelines WCAG 2.0 AA is the standard adopted for website compliance.

Frequently Asked Questions

With web accessibility being essential but complicated for some users, we receive questions regularly. Here is a list of the most frequently asked questions we receive:

• How do I make my website fully ADA-compliant?

  The key steps to adopt to ensure your website is fully compliant with ADA standards include:

  • Enabling keyboard navigation
  • Testing all website forms
  • Including descriptions for images, creating video and audio transcripts
  • Using alt tags for images, video, and audio files
  • Eliminating or adjusting all time-constraint elements and avoiding content that can trigger seizures or physical reactions

• What are 3 different requirements to make a website ADA Americans with Disabilities Act compliant?

  The three different requirements that help ensure an ADA-compliant website include:

  • Coding the site with standard HTML tags
  • Choosing and using graphics adhering to web content accessibility guidelines
  • Remaining updated with the latest ADA-compliance changes

• What is ADA compliance website design?

  ADA is the acronym for the Americans with Disabilities Act. It means that people with disabilities must be able to quickly and comfortably access all and any form of electronic information and technology like your website.

• Do bank websites need to be ADA-compliant?

  Yes, especially with the banking sector playing a massive role in providing financial services online to people. By ensuring ADA website compliance, the bank ensures its online presence is accessible to all users who use all devices.

Conclusion

Whether you plan to design or redesign your financial services website does not matter. What does matter is ensuring it is ADA-compliant for two main reasons: To ensure your website is accessible to everyone and also to avoid landing up in a lawsuit.

Following these steps ensures video content on your website is accessible to everyone, including users with various types of disabilities. Web compliance is a continual process wherein you must check your website to ensure it’s updated with the latest compliance issues.

Do not worry if you find this tedious because we at ADA Site Compliance can help. It is what we are best at, ensuring ADA-compliant websites. We proudly say we are the #1 source for all ADA-accessible website and compliance issues. Our team of accessibility experts will check and fix all errors to ensure your website is fully ADA-compliant.

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