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The ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act. It protects people with disabilities from discrimination in their daily lives. It covers the workplace, education, transport, and any space that’s open to the public.

But the act also extends to electronic and information technology, including websites.

In short, having an ADA-compliant website is a legal requirement, but it also makes commercial sense.

The digital transformation of our lives means that businesses and organizations can’t afford to leave anyone behind. Access to the online world is a necessity rather than a choice, and putting up barriers to disabled citizens is not only morally and legally wrong but it’s also bad business.

So, what challenges do disabled people face when interacting with a website?

Challenges for disabled users

If you think of your website as a physical space, like a shop, you would never give your customers a door that was difficult to open. The virtual doorway to your business needs to swing freely open for everyone. From the landing page to your order management system software, you need to think about every aspect of your website from the point of view of disabled users.

You might want to carry out a full IT compliance audit checklist to see how your site rates and identify areas for improvement. It will give you a starting point from which to measure your progress as you make your site more accessible.

There are four basic areas of disability that can impact a website user: physical, cognitive, auditory (including speech), and visual. Let’s look at them one by one.

Physical

Suppose your website has complex click interactions or doesn’t have full keyboard support. In that case, you could be making life difficult for people with various physical disabilities, ranging from paralysis and chronic diseases like arthritis to a person with missing limbs.

People with these types of physical disabilities often interact with technology using head pointers, mouth sticks, joysticks, on-screen keyboards, or hands-free software, like voice recognition.

Cognitive

Cognitive disabilities are behavioral and neurological conditions including ADHD, autism, MS, and epilepsy, as well as learning difficulties, such as dyslexia.

People who have cognitive disabilities can find websites that have flashing, blinking content and sound that can’t be turned off particularly challenging. They need clear, uncluttered navigation and text that can be easily enlarged. Text-to-speech software can also be a great help.

Auditory

Hearing loss or deafness means that, although a site’s visuals might be fully accessible, any audio or video content needs to be carefully considered.

If videos or audio elements can’t be paused and don’t have adjustable volume, this can be a real obstacle. Likewise, videos that don’t have clear and legible subtitles and captions, background music, and unnecessary sound effects are also a barrier.

Speech

Speech impairment also needs to be considered. Many businesses only have a phone number as a contact or use some element of speech recognition. This is where machine intelligence solutions could really make a difference.

Visual

This disability probably represents the biggest challenge when it comes to using a website. It can mean a person is blind or, to some degree, partially sighted. People with visual disabilities need to zoom in and enlarge text. They also use braille readers or screen readers that say content aloud. Websites that don’t work with these functions or lack keyboard support can completely shut the visually impaired out.

Design is key

So, how can website design help people with disabilities? Some fixes can be simple or inexpensive, like making sure your website layout is clear, but there are other possibilities, such as a quality risk assessment matrix to better assess compliance or looking at your training strategy when it comes to your IT department. Here are some practical tips for making your website ADA compliant.

1. Layout: present information in a clear and logical order. Avoid too many choices or confusing choices. Make sure the same information isn’t repeated or hidden in different locations. Make sure the menu is easily visible or audible.

2. Text and font: choose a clear and suitable text size and font.

3. Color: use color well. Don’t have the website too monochrome, but avoid too many colors or combinations that colorblind people have difficulty with.                          

4. Actions: make all actions definite and precise. Use phrases such as “Book Here” rather than “Click Here” without specifying what will happen when the client presses click. Avoid users having to hover over buttons or elements to make them work.

5. Errors: have a clear and helpful error message if something goes wrong. Make sure the message offers advice on addressing the issue, and make sure these are audible and easy to read.

6. Headings: format headings properly. This can really help users, as screen readers recognize the various levels of headings.

7. Alt tags: these will allow users to read and hear descriptions of video and audio content. This function also helps with SEO, but make sure descriptions are clear and accurate.

8. Keyboard: ensure the site is accessible to users who can only interact through a keyboard. Try this out yourself. Make sure the tab order is logical and intuitive.

9. Transcriptions: make sure you have transcriptions of videos and audio content. Make these separate and in addition to captions and subtitles. Some users like to read through or listen again to content without images or sound to interfere with their concentration. 

10. Test: last of all, walk through the whole website yourself, try it out in different modes, and put yourself in a disabled user’s shoes. Don’t be afraid to get feedback from disabled users themselves. There’s no point in making changes if you don’t get them right.

The benefits

Having an accessible website that’s ADA-compliant means you’re open for business to the entire population. You’ll bring in customers and clients from every section of society, building a brand image that’s inclusive and welcoming. As part of your IT business continuity plan making sure you’re keeping up with your legal and customer care-based duties is a must.

But you’re not only making sure you avoid costly legal issues and fines and gaining customers, but you’re also empowering people to live full, independent lives and make their own choices without assistance. This alone is surely enough of a reason to make simple changes and get your website ADA-compliant.

Photo by Marcus Aurelius on Pexels

The post What Is an ADA-Compliant Website and How Can You Build One? appeared first on noupe.

Cloud technology has led to innovations across many disciplines. The ability to store and access data from anywhere has been a game-changer. On top of that, the power of AI-assisted analytics is giving businesses faster and more accurate insights than ever. 

It’s no surprise, then, that marketing has embraced cloud technology. Personalization of marketing is something marketers have been working towards for some time. With cloud marketing, it is possible to perfect this strategy with real-time data insights.  

What Does Cloud Marketing Mean?

When we talk about cloud marketing, we’re talking about all of your business’s online marketing efforts. What makes cloud marketing different from online marketing, in general, is the integration of all these separate channels. 

The goal of cloud marketing is to provide each customer with an individualized experience. This experience should be consistent across all the channels where they interact with your business. 

To make this possible, marketers use technologies like cloud data warehouse storage and AI data processing. We collect and analyze data on customer behaviors and preferences. Then, we use this to personalize marketing materials that a given customer sees.

Cloud marketing is a technology-driven solution. It relies on data insights from analytics, but the distribution of marketing is often automated too. Several different technologies work together to deliver the solution.

That’s why many businesses turn to single, integrated solutions known as cloud marketing platforms.   

What Is a Cloud Marketing Platform?

Broadly speaking, we can separate cloud marketing into two areas, media and tools. Media makes up the channels where you interact with customers, whether email, your website, or social media. Tools are what you use to track data and deliver your marketing campaigns. 

A cloud marketing platform aims to combine these tools into a single interface. This allows you to manage campaigns across all your media channels. Salesforce, IBM, and other major business software providers have their versions of these software suites.

The Benefits of a Marketing Cloud

Compared with traditional marketing, using a marketing cloud brings you closer to your customers. Being able to personalize marketing materials and accurately target a customer’s preferred channels is a huge advantage. 

Data-Driven Insights

In the past, marketing relied on direct feedback from customers or market research for insight. This was costly, hard to obtain and often out of date by the time it was analyzed. Compared with analyzing real-time customer data, the old ways can’t compete.  

We used to judge the success of our marketing campaigns based on related metrics like sales volume. Now, we can see the effects of changes in marketing reflected in customer behaviors. We can even see which customers respond to different types of messaging. 

All of this gives us as marketers far more knowledge of our individual customers. We get more control over what a customer sees across all marketing channels. It allows for the kind of consistent, personalized experience that customers are looking for. 

Scalability

When you’re still growing as a business, scalability is imperative. You don’t want to make a costly investment today that your business will outgrow in a year. A key advantage of cloud-based solutions is that they can scale with your business. 

Whether we’re talking about professional phone systems or data warehousing solutions, space in the cloud is affordable and accessible. There’s little to limit your growth, though costs will increase proportionally, and large businesses may even provide their own cloud hosting. 

Global Collaboration

Cloud-based marketing enhances your collaborative abilities. When you’re engaging with a global audience, it’s important to tailor your marketing with different cultures in mind. Having the ability to instantly collaborate with colleagues in different localities enables this flexibility.  

Business communications have embraced cloud technology in the same way as marketing. Cloud phone systems and workplace collaboration apps like Slack can play a big role in enhancing your internal efficiency. 

Cost & Efficiency Savings

The relatively low cost of online advertising has been a draw for marketers since the dawn of ecommerce. With cloud marketing strategies, the cost savings multiply. Automation in the distribution of marketing materials saves time and money.   

Making the most of social marketing with the assistance of data insights is a highly cost-effective way of targeting your advertising. With a better way of targeting your ideal customers, less of your marketing efforts go to waste on non-viable prospects. 

How to Implement a Cloud Marketing Strategy

Depending on the stage of your business, there will be different levels of investment and effort required. Maybe your marketing is done online, and you just need a way to integrate your systems. Or, maybe you’re just moving into digital marketing. 

Whatever scenario you’re in, the following four steps will guide you in implementing your cloud marketing strategy. 

1. Plan

First, you need to take stock of your current marketing channels. Make a list of any software and hardware that your marketers are using. This could mean anything from your campaign management software to your consultants’ mobile business plans. 

Once you have these details, set your goals for implementing cloud marketing. Set your budget, then research your options. This will help you assess what systems you need to replace, what you can integrate, and what will be your most cost-effective solution.  

Once your systems are in place, plan your campaigns. Digital marketing requires a constant flow of content. Online platforms must stay up to date, social media feeds need to post consistently, and so on. Automation will help with scheduling, but the content needs to be ready.

2. Test

When you have access to real-time customer data and analysis, testing should become a habit. Use your automated tools and customer data to run A/B marketing tests on your audience segments.   

3. Evaluate

Make use of all the data you are collecting. You planned your campaign based on data insights, keep that going. Use both your test data and the feedback you collect from user behaviors. Look at your highest and lowest engagement rates and learn from successes and mistakes.  

4. Refine

Cloud marketing aims to elevate the entire customer experience. You should always keep this in mind as you refine your strategy. Ensure your marketing department is not isolated from your sales and customer service. All these teams help shape your customer experience.  

With cloud marketing, you create a positive data feedback loop with the rest of your business. This will help you keep that all-important customer experience consistent across your marketing, sales, and service channels. 

Final Thoughts

Cloud marketing isn’t for every business. There is a high requirement for consistent content output that could deter smaller companies. The technologies that make this strategy work are available to all businesses at some level.

It could be that digital asset management or cloud data storage fit your needs, even if you don’t implement a full multichannel marketing platform. Looking forward to where this technology can fit in with your business could help future-proof your operations.

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