What is ADA Compliance?

ADA (or Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance is legislation to ensure all organisations are making their content as accessible as possible to everyone, regardless of whether they have a disability. This might be a visual, hearing, speech, cognitive or physical impairment which means an end user is unable to access information in the same way as a person without the same impairment. Essentially the legislation is there to level the playing field and  guard against discrimination.

Why is it important?

Technology can be used to help people with disabilities to access information in a meaningful way. These 'assistive' technologies, such as screen-readers, help a visually impaired user access content using technologies such as 'text to speech'. Much like an audible book, all written words on a webpage can be read aloud using this technology. 

Who is responsible?

ADA compliance is a whole organization's responsibility. You may not be responsible for publishing content on the website, but it may well be that you originate some of the information which is eventually published. For example, a person responsible for maintaining the Law Library Publications information. 

Guidance on Accessibility from external public sources

We aren't trying to re-invent the wheel here at Michigan Law.

What we are trying to do is share best practice in terms of creating well designed, accessible content within our organisation.

There is already some great content on the web which provides guidance on best practice for producing content for digital platforms with accessibility in mind. 

Here are some of our top picks.