The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a law that stops discrimination against people with disabilities in public places. ADA Title III covers businesses called “public accommodations”, such as colleges, stores, banks, hospitals, and restaurants.
In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said that websites also count as “public accommodations” under the ADA. This means websites must be easy to use for people with disabilities like vision or hearing problems.
It’s important to know that the ADA also applies to other parts of businesses’ online spaces, not just their websites. This includes things like emails, videos, and documents online, such as PDFs.
Why Should PDFs be ADA-compliant?
PDF, or Portable Document Format, is a popular way to share documents online. A PDF document has different parts, such as paragraphs, images, and tables, and each part is tagged. Assistive technologies, such as screen readers and text-to-speech devices, use these tags to convey the document properly to people with disabilities.
The ADA document remediation guidelines require PDFs to be fully accessible to assistive technology. Unfortunately, most PDFs are not tagged efficiently. Such untagged PDFs create information barriers for people with disabilities.
Read More: Types of PDF Standards and Compliances
How to Create an ADA-compliant PDF?
When you make an accessible PDF, remember these tips:
- Choose the Right Language : Make sure your PDF is set in the correct language. This helps screen readers understand the text correctly and avoids confusion.
- Begin with an Accessible Document : If you can, start with a document that’s easy to access. Then, change it into a PDF while keeping its accessibility features intact.
- Use Clear Headings and Structure : Arrange your information with clear headings and in a way that makes sense. This helps readers navigate through the document and grasp the content easily.
- Add Descriptions for Pictures and Charts: Make sure all important images, charts, and other non-text elements have descriptions. This helps people who use screen readers understand what’s in the images.
- Tag Tables and Forms Correctly: When you use tables and forms, tag them properly so they’re easy to navigate. Tables should have header rows and columns labeled correctly. Remember to use specific tags like
for the whole table and
for individual rows. - Ensure Good Color Contrast: Make sure there’s enough contrast between your text and background colors. This helps everyone read your content, especially people with vision problems like color blindness. To learn more about how color contrast works in ADA-compliant documents, you can check out our guide here.
- Use Easy-to-read Fonts and Consistent Formatting: When creating PDFs, it’s important to use fonts that are easy to read and keep the formatting consistent. This ensures that everyone can access the information without any difficulty.
- Make Links Easy to Understand: Hyperlinks in your PDF should have clear and descriptive text so that readers know where they’ll go when they click. This is especially helpful for people using assistive technology.
- Ensure Accessibility: After finishing your document, run a check to find any accessibility problems. This helps ensure everyone can use your PDF without trouble.
Read More: Common PDF Accessibility Errors to Avoid
Where Can You Utilize ADA-compliant PDFs?
Educational Materials: Schools and universities can make PDF versions of textbooks and handouts so that differently abled students can easily read them.
Government Documents: Government agencies can create PDFs of reports and brochures that follow ADA guidelines, making them accessible to everyone.
Healthcare Materials: Hospitals can make PDFs of patient forms and consent forms that meet ADA standards, allowing patients with disabilities to understand and fill them out.
Business Documents: Companies can produce ADA-compliant PDFs like employee manuals and marketing materials, ensuring all employees and customers can read them.
Legal Documents: Law firms can make ADA-friendly PDFs of legal papers like contracts and court filings. This means including things like alt text for images and clear headings so that people with disabilities can understand them too.
What Happens if Your PDFs Are Not Accessible?
If digital documents don’t meet ADA accessibility rules, they could become targets for lawyers looking to make quick money through lawsuits. These lawyers sue document owners and often win cases easily, leading to hefty settlement costs. On average, settling a lawsuit after getting an accessibility demand letter can cost $5,000, and some companies end up paying over $25,000.
From court decisions to digital rights activists, most agree that digital documents should be accessible to people with disabilities. Not following the rules is more costly and troublesome than just making documents accessible in the first place.
When you adhere to ADA digital accessibility guidelines, you also get added benefits like a better brand image and more users.
How to Remediate an Existing PDF Document?
Turning a regular PDF into one that meets ADA standards is called PDF remediation. It involves checking for issues that make the PDF hard to use for people with disabilities, like missing tags or wrong formatting, and fixing them.
Even though it sounds simple, PDF remediation can get tough when there are lots of PDFs to fix, especially if they have tricky elements. That’s why many businesses turn to experts like PREP to help them fix their PDFs.
Most experts know all about the rules for making PDFs accessible and can handle big projects with ease. They understand the sections of the rules that apply to PDFs and can handle even the most complicated fixes.
How can PREP Help in Creating an ADA-compliant PDF?
PREP is a PDF remediation tool that processes inaccessible documents and extracts data with the help of advanced AI technology. It ensures efficient data conversion into a logical format by understanding the context of each document. PREP also provides customized solutions for unstructured data.
The compliance guidelines undergo updates frequently, and these constant updates can make it challenging to keep up with compliance manually. However, the robust built-in ADA-compliant accessibility checker and PDF checker in PREP validate the document’s compliance with the WCAG and ADA guidelines. PREP can automate the remediation of complex documents in multiple formats at affordable prices and a quicker turnaround time.
Closing Thoughts
Creating accessible documents helps your organization in many ways –
- Adhering to compliance guidelines set by ADA, section 508 and WCAG
- Improving readability by assistive technologies
- Reaching a larger audience
- Establishing moral leadership
- Establishing an all-inclusive business strategy
One cannot emphasize the importance of PDF accessibility enough. When PDFs are marked up for accessibility incorrectly, people with disabilities may face navigation issues. The navigation problems result in non-compliance and heavy penalties of up to $150,000. Apart from all other benefits, your organization should make documents accessible because ‘it is the right thing to do.
CategoriesWhy Should you Avoid Inaccessible PDFs?
Key Takeaways -
- Accessible PDFs are necessary for an accessible website.
- The consequences of inaccessible PDFs are lawsuits, bad reputation, and loss of business.
- Accessible PDFs are the right thing to do for an inclusive strategy.
- Having accessible documents can benefit your customers and your business.
Why Should you Avoid Inaccessible PDFs?
Digital accessibility is now a requisite, especially when social responsibility plays a hand. Imagine trying to make sense of twisted images, weird fonts, and random graphics (to name a few). That is how a person with a disability tries to read an inaccessible PDF with assistive technology.
Yet, you think you’ve taken steps to make your website accessible!
Complete web accessibility means the PDF files on your website need to be accessible too. The impact inaccessible PDFs can have on your business can cause severe damage.
Inaccessibility Attracts Lawsuits
One repercussion of inaccessible PDFs is lawsuits. General accessibility standards are moving toward WCAG 2.1 to meet the needs of its differently-abled users. So having an inaccessible website, whether it’s a government website or not, is grounds for legal action.
The number of digital accessibility lawsuits has seen an increase in recent years. Each case is time-consuming and expensive. Now, most websites, including PDFs and other digital content, without written clarity on the issue, are considered to be places of public accommodation under Title III of the ADA. If any files on your website or your website are inaccessible, you’re violating the ADA.
Inaccessibility causes Reputational Damage to your Business
Consumers want to trust and support companies that support good causes, like accessibility. Accessibility creates an environment that values equality. And this attracts consumers with and without disabilities. Failing to make all your digital communication, including PDFs, accessible gives the impression that your business does not prioritize accessibility and those who need it. Word spreads quickly, especially on the internet. Having inaccessible content can cause damage to your branding, customer base, and market share.
Inaccessibility Limits the Reach of Your Business
As a business, your goal is to reach as many people as possible. And users with disabilities include a significant part of the market. Considering today’s digital dependence, excluding accessible PDFs and other basic ADA requirements can result in losing existing and potential customers.
Accessible websites can also lead to a growth in revenue. An increasing number of consumers are driven by values. They prefer socially responsible, diverse, and inclusive businesses, even with rising costs. Not accommodating web accessibility, including PDF accessibility, is the risk of losing traffic and sales.
Accessibility Benefits All
PDF accessibility is not just for users with blindness or partial sight but also those with hearing impairments, weak motor & agility skills, and learning disabilities. One could argue that it can even benefit all users. A general benefit that all users can enjoy is the availability of documents they would otherwise have limited access to. Plus, accessible PDFs are easier to navigate, maintain, update, and convert to other formats.
It also provides an SEO(Search Engine Optimization) boost. An accessible PDF document allows for easy web crawling by search engines such as Google. This makes it more visible to online searches and improves the likelihood of finding its way to your target audience.
Importance of having Accessible PDFs
Web accessibility is understanding, recognizing, and ensuring that everybody gets the same opportunity to participate. Nowadays, most communication is available in a digital format. However, organizations fail to realize the importance accessible documents have in today’s world.
Accessibility Encourages Inclusivity
A large percentage of the population requires assistive technology. This specially designed equipment, software, or hardware, helps people with disabilities with tasks they would otherwise be unable to do—for example, screen readers and screen magnifiers for visually impaired users. Inaccessible PDFs make it difficult for them to enjoy the same access as everyone else. Making sure your resources are available to everyone, especially people with disabilities, shows that your business is willing to make an effort to include all customers.
Accessibility Displays Good Business Sense
For an inclusive business strategy, accessible PDFs are the right thing to do. Assuming a fair part of your customer base struggles with a disability, being inaccessible excludes at least 20% of your target group.
Investing in complete web accessibility shows your organization’s willingness to adapt and commitment to social responsibility. This allows for a better user experience enjoyed by all customers and a positive brand perception.
Accessibility Helps Avoid Bad Publicity
Keeping your business up-to-date with digital norms is hard enough. Neglecting to make your website and PDFs accessible in an ever-changing digital environment can cause a negative brand image, lower sales and market share, and other PR disasters.
Final Thoughts
- Complete web accessibility means the PDF files on your website need to be accessible too.
- The impact inaccessible PDFs can have on your business include:
- Time-consuming and expensive lawsuits
- Damage to your reputation
- You are losing your customers, sales, and traffic.
- Web accessibility is an investment that benefits your customers and your business. It creates an environment of equal opportunities for all users.
Businesses that don’t prioritize web accessibility end up alienating a good portion of their customer base and fall behind. That includes inaccessible PDFs. Whether a private or federal organization, the goal is to make PDFs and other digital resources accessible to everyone. It’s about providing equal access to all your customers – including those with disabilities.
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