Drupal Accessibility & ADA Compliance Module

To support its commitment to providing an accessible website-building tool, Drupal has made accessibility advancements in its core code, beginning with Drupal 7. It has done this to ensure features of its standard profile conform with WCAG 2.0 guidelines, the global standard for web accessibility. Some of these accessibility features include proper use of semantic mark-up for proper headings and page-level navigation, drag and drop functionality, color contrast and intensity, adding skip navigation to core themes, form labeling, image handling, removing duplicate or null tags, and others.

However, not every website begins and ends with this standard installation profile. As you add custom content and imagery, additional modules and custom themes, for example, these additions most certainly impact your level of accessibility. Is your markup compliant? Are you colors properly contrasting? Do all of your images have alternative text? To add complexity, standards for compliance are continuously updating. This is where adding the AudioEye Drupal accessibility module will give you accessibility peace of mind—certifying your Drupal website’s ADA / WCAG compliance, keeping up with changing standards, and reducing your risk of an ADA-related lawsuit.

We’ve created a free website to help understand your level of Drupal ADA compliance. Navigate to accessibilitytest.org, plug in your URL and you’ll receive a 0-100 accessibility “score.” We use AudioEye’s comprehensive testing tool, but we’ve also aggregated other tools for a comprehensive evaluation—Wave, axe and HTML_CodeSniffer. It’s important to note that with the dynamic nature of website content, you’ll likely never have, or sustain, a 100-percent accessible site. However, even one error may pose a barrier for an individual with a disability, so it’s important to know what those errors are and where they exist.

You can also use built-in features like VoiceOver on your Mac or iPhone to test your accessibility. VoiceOver is similar to a screen reader assistive technology. If you enable the feature and listen to the way in which your website is “read” to you, it will quickly indicate whether you have accessibility errors.  

To solve your accessibility issues, simply download and install AudioEye’s Drupal accessibility module. When installed, your Drupal website is ADA compliant, and we certify that compliance with our AudioEye Trusted Certification

When it comes to your Drupal ADA/WCAG compliance, the legal requirements can be confusing. While there are legal mandates for certain entities like government organizations and other publicly funded organizations, the reality is, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does not specifically mandate website accessibility for private industries, but this has not stopped plaintiffs from suing private businesses for inaccessible online content. And U.S. Federal Courts have repeatedly ruled in favor of accessibility, interpreting the internet as a place of public accommodation and therefore subject to the ADA requirements. This means risk of non-compliance may cost a company tens of thousands of dollars in legal battles, not to mention consume a great deal of time and costly overhead.

No question Drupal has done a great job committing to accessibility and building features into its standard profile. However, the challenge with any website on any platform is that your content and images are unique to your business or organization. That means, regardless of any out-of-the-box accessibility features, you must be sure your additional modules and custom content are also accessible according to WCAG standards. Some of the most common errors include improper color contrast, a logical navigation/heading structure, meaningful labels, alternative text for images, and descriptive hyperlinks. Further, the globally recognized standards for accessibility are continuously evolving. In fact, WCAG version 2.2 includes new accessibility requirements the World Wide Web Consortium is referring to as “success criteria.”

In short, it’s hard for any platform to keep up with, and implement, features that support the changing standards. AudioEye not only keeps ahead of the WCAG standards, we’re continuously engineering automatic fixes to remediate the most common errors on the spot. Once you download the Drupal accessibility module and install AudioEye on your website, we’ll immediately certify your Drupal ADA compliance.

Accessibility on your Drupal website is easy with AudioEye. Simply establish an AudioEye account, pick your plan, download and install the AudioEye Drupal accessibility module, and our technology gets to work finding and fixing the most common WCAG errors. You will also then notice our Toolbar on your website (look for and click the accessibility icon). Our Toolbar enables users to personalize their interactions by adjusting things like color contrast, font spacing and size, visual emphasis and more

Installing the Drupal accessibility module to your website not only significantly reduces your risk of a potentially costly and time-consuming ADA legal battle, but it also ensures your content, products, and services are accessible to the one billion consumers worldwide who are living with a disability. And these consumers, with their friends and family, represent upwards of eight trillion dollars in expendable income. Further, an accessible website vastly improves your website’s SEO. Search engines can more accurately interpret your content with proper semantic markup/page structure. And maybe most importantly, an accessible website positions your brand as one that is more inclusive, one that values an equitable online experience for users of all abilities. Win, win, win, win!

Drupal puts it this way (and we agree): “…our idealized Drupal community does not build accessible software because of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (in the US), the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), or some other legal requirement. We build accessible software because we value people. We have opinions about right and wrong, good and bad, etc., and we—ideally—value all people.”