Are Brizy Cloud Websites ADA Accessible?
Written by Connor Olson
Brizy Cloud is an excellent website builder that we, Circulation Studio, regularly use for our client’s websites. We love the intuitive and easy to use drag and drop builder, the responsive design, professional templates, and fast, cloud-based hosting.
More importantly, they have constantly been improving Brizy Cloud ever since we started using them. But today, we're not just talking about all of the things we love about Brizy. We are looking in-depth into ADA compliance - which begs the question:
Are Brizy Cloud Websites ADA Compliant?
The short answer: Not usually - unless you've already but a lot of work into making your website ADA compliant. That said, the Brizy team isn’t too far off and they may only be a few feature releases away from becoming fully compliant.
For the rest of this article, we'll be digging into
- What exactly is ADA Compliance?
- How do you test your own website for ADA compliance?
- What are some common ADA issues that Brizy Cloud websites often have?
- How do you fix those ADA issues?
More than 11,400 people filed an ADA Title III lawsuit in 2021—a 4 percent increase from 2020 and a 320 percent increase since 2013. California's 5,930 filings accounted for over half of the total nationwide and more than the other 49 states combined.
What is ADA & WCAG?
What is ADA and why do businesses need to be compliant?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law that was enacted in 1990 to protect the rights of individuals with disabilities. This law mandates appropriate accommodations for individuals with disabilities so they can take part fully in the activities and services supplied by the business. It applies to businesses, government agencies, and other organizations that are open to the public.
One important aspect of ADA is the requirement for websites to be accessible to individuals with disabilities. This means that a company's website should be created so that anyone, regardless of whether they are using a computer, smartphone, or other device, can utilize the website.
It is important for a company to have an ADA-compliant website for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it’s the right thing to do. Individuals with disabilities are able to access the same information and services as everyone else. Having an ADA-compliant website can also help bring in more clients because it demonstrates the company's dedication to inclusivity and accessibility. Finally, ADA lawsuits are on the rise, as the number of lawsuits has been increasing year over year. Having an ADA-compliant website will help you avoid those lawsuits and the stress and time suck that come along with them.
What is WCAG?
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a set of technical guidelines that provide recommendations for making web content more accessible to people with disabilities. ADA does not clearly establish technical criteria for website accessibility, so instead WCAG is used as the benchmark when assessing the accessibility of websites.
There are three levels of WCAG conformance: A, AA, and AAA. The A level is the most basic level of conformance and all A level errors must be fixed to be ADA compliant. While there aren’t any strict rules, AA is considered as the minimum level of conformance to be considered ADA compliant, so it is recommended that you fix all AA level errors. The highest degree of compliance, the AAA level, is designed for businesses that want to go beyond the minimum requirements of the AA level.
2. Are Brizy Cloud Websites ADA Compliant?
Testing Your Own Brizy Cloud Website for ADA Compliance
Before we dig too much into the common ADA issues that Brizy websites usually see, we recommend you test your own website. You can use the Userway scanner to test one of the pages on your website:
Unless you've already put a lot of effort into making your website ADA compliant, your Userway report will likely light up like a Christmas tree.
The good news: there's likely a solution in Brizy for most of the issues you see.
The other good news: we'll give you another solution for any issues that Brizy can't handle on its own.
Common ADA Issues with Brizy Cloud Websites
Below is a list of the most common ADA issues that you will see when you first run your Userway scan. You will be able to fix certain issues within Brizy, while others will require third-party software to fix. We recommend Userway and use it on our own and client websites.
I'd be willing to bet that you will see some of these issues when you run your own Userway Scan. In the next section, I'll show you how to solve each ADA compliance issue.
ADA Issues that Brizy Can Solve
ADA Issues that Require Userway
Common ADA Issues That Brizy Can Handle
Empty 'alt' attribute's value for image (or mishandled decorative image)
Description:
Checks that each image has an alt attribute with sufficient description to convey its meaning to users who cannot see it.
WCAG Level: A
Brizy's Solution:
Brizy has a section for adding Alt tags to most images. Here is how you can add Alt Text in Brizy
There are a few types of blocks in Brizy (e.g. the photo gallery) where this is not yet possible to add alt image text.
Userway Solution:
Paid Userway will identify any alt tags that are missing. It can also use AI to come up with and automatically fill in any missing alt tags.
If you have 100s of images on your website, Userway’s AI can be a quick, easy way to fill in the alt text, although we have found that some of the AI descriptions won’t make sense. So we recommend still going through and making sure the alt texts make sense.
In addition, we also recommend, over time, going into Brizy and manually entering the alt image tags. That way if you ever stop using Userway, you will still have the Alt image tags on the website.