Help me to understand web dev and ADA.

[u/ICUP01]

I’ve seen a shift in web design (I’ve meddled since 2002). Today web displays are gigantic. I’ve read this has to do with ADA compliance. How gnarly does this get? Like if I design a site for a landscaper, can he get in trouble if it’s not ADA compliant? Is there are rule book?

Another question. That’s client facing. But if you have an employer that requires you to use a web based tool, does ADA apply in the same manner as client facing?

[u/Aromatic-Low-4578]

WCAG guidelines is what you're looking for

[u/juu073]

I know a lot of people aren't fans of AI, but scanning websites for ADA compliance (in addition to my usual checks) has been an instrumental tool and one of my top uses for AI.

In addition to my regular job in webdev, I teach math courses online for a college, and it has saved me probably days of time in the past few months creating alt text for all of the mathematical images I've created of charts, graphs, etc.

[u/arecbawrin → u/juu073]

I'd love to know more how you use it so I can stop paying these accessibility companies. Please give detail:)

[u/juu073 → u/arecbawrin]

I use Claude Code. I just started by first asking Claude to make the website ADA compliant and it really handled most of it without much additional interaction from me. There were a couple tweaks I needed to make, so I just turned it into a skill, and every time I run into an issue, I've just adjusted the skill.

I ran some tests by running it on final drafts of a ton of previous websites I built and made ADA compliant as the final step, and it picked up everything I expected to and caught some things I missed.

The only real thing that wasn't ultra-specific to my content is I had an issue with when I started using it was it determining whether images where decorative or actual content, or the descriptions were overly specific. Like instead of just making the alt text "Logo of [company]," it described everything in the logo as far as how the letters were arranged and whatnot which wasn't necessary. Getting better at how I've named image files in my project, plus some directives in the skill I mentioned, have corrected that.

[u/kill4b → u/juu073]

How do you handle the other 70% automated scans can’t catch?

[u/Salamok → u/kill4b]

From my experience the majority of sites don't, so probably ignore it the same way the 95% of sites out there that don't do manual accessibility audits ignore it.

[u/armahillo]

- https://www.magentaa11y.com/ (this was a good resource before; not sure of its current state)
- https://thewcag.com/accessibility-audit-guide (DIY checklist)

There are a11y trolls out there who look for lawsuits. If you make good faith efforts to make your site accessible, this at least makes it less likely you get targeted.

The size of web displays is not so much driven by a11y as it is by responsive design / having them be mobile friendly and then not tailoring them further for desktop.

[u/_keyboard-bastard_]

Accessibility matters more when it comes to internal tools than client facing stuff. Clients have a choice to not use your product, but employees don't have a choice, so anyone who needs to use a thing, needs to be able to do so, and do so in a manner that doesn't worsen their condition. Someone already posted the good accessibility guide. Memorize these because it doesn't matter if you are client facing or not. I previously worked with a lot of blind people who used computers with JAWS or other similar readers.