In today’s world, online services and websites work as information hubs and storefronts for public agencies and businesses. However, when these digital spaces don’t think about people with disabilities, it can be a legal issue. Today, many organizations are now facing fines, lawsuits, and also reputational damage. The reason is that they cannot meet proper standards stated by the ADA or Americans with Disabilities Act, along with state-specific rules.

So, if you focus on digital accessibility and CCPD fines, you have to know a few vital pieces of information.

Digital Accessibility: What Is It?

The meaning of digital accessibility is designing your content. After that, carefully develop your digital content. Those can be apps, websites, multimedia, electronic documents, and also devices. In this way, disabled people like people with auditory, motor, visual, or cognitive issues can use them with ease. This includes content like:

  • Operable Interfaces: This generally includes voice controls as well as a navigation that is keyboard-friendly.
  • Perceivable content: To create perceivable content, try to use Alt text for images. Also, don’t forget to use proper captions for your readable fonts and video.
  • Strong Technical Structures: Companies have to offer Braille displays, compatibility with screen readers, and also a few other types of assistive tech. 
  • Easily Understandable information: Companies must use a layout that is predictable and a clear language.

Who It Impacts?

Digital accessibility offered by companies can impact people like:

  1. People who have disabilities like:
  • People who are completely deaf or have hearing conditions and have to depend on closed captions and transcripts. 
  • Blind or people with low vision who require screen readers. 
  • People with cognitive issues who need clear language with usable design.
  • Motor-impaired individuals who need to use keyboard navigation.
  • Users who are working in challenging contexts. Those may include disturbed surroundings.
  1. Owner of the Platform:
  • Better analytics: With digital accessibility, companies can create cleaner code and descriptive elements that can improve tracking.
  • Reduced Costs: With this, companies can enjoy enough manual support, along with fewer user issues.
  • Accessibility compliance: This can result in inclusivity, innovation, and, of course, long-term resilience.

Why Is It Vital?

  • Business Opportunities: Statistics reveal that 1 out of 4 adults in the United States suffer from some kind of disability. Thus, offering digital accessibility provision is the niche where companies can increase their revenue potential. 
  • Social Inclusion: It can make sure that companies enjoy equal access to several critical services. Those generally include education, online shopping, healthcare, and even banking.
  • Brand Value: Digital accessibility can help to enhance your brand loyalty. Also, it can positively influence public perception.

Key Advantages of Embracing Digital Accessibility

When a company embraces digital accessibility, it can enjoy lots of advantages. For example:

  • It can ensure that every customer will have fair access.
  • It will be seen customer-centric and ethical. It will result in boosting the companiy’s reputation and let the company avoid lawsuits, penalties or fines. This will result in stronger brand loyalty.
  • With this, companies can offer a clearer design that will help all users.
  • With improved structure, companies will achieve enhanced SEO or page ranking.
  • With this tech agility, companies can easily promote designs that are forward-compatible.
  • With segmented markets, you can take care of all your customers and services. 

So, to enjoy these benefits, you have to work with Trivadi & Associates Tecknical Services (P.) Ltd. It is a reliable statutory compliance company in Vadodara that has lots of satisfied customers. 

Action Plan: How To Ensure Digital Accessibility?

    1. Train your employees

You need to train your teams of designers, developers, and content creators on the best practices of digital accessibility. For instance:

  • Designers: Your designers need to check color contrast, legible typography, layout semantics, etc.
  • Developers: You developers need to take care of accessibility coding best practices.
  • Product Owners: Product owners of your company must not forget to take care of the entire budget oversight. Also, request them to regularly monitor the metrics of accessibility.
  • Content Creators: These professionals must write descriptive links, alt text, and obviously an easy-to-read language.


    2. Test Manually

 Regular manual testing is always vital for a few elements. Those usually are color contrast, keyboard navigation, usability of form, compatibility of screen reader, etc.

     3. Audit Your Digital Assets:

You need to use several vital tools to properly audit your digital assets. Those may include Axe, WAVE, expert audits, or Siteimprove. These are a few automated scanning tools. They will always help you to easily identify your audits and penalties. 

   4. Document Policies

 You need to publish a statement on accessibility and your remediation plan. For this, you can:

  • Keep a roadmap of living accessibility.
  • Check for issues, remedies, and also validation results.
  • Assign a few responsible owners, along with compliance deadlines.

    5. Plan Your Ongoing Maintenance

  • Try to include checks in the release cycles. Moreover, you need to do annual audits.
  • Engage With Your Users
  • Don’t forget to gather feedback from your users. However, they must have lived experience.

    6. Implement WCAG 2.1 AA

 Try to implement address missing alt text, compliance, inaccessible forms, low contrast, etc.  Today, all companies need to follow WCAG 2.1 AA as the minimum standard. When you must exceed legal expectations, you have to take care of Level AAA in key modules. Those must have transcripts, captions, extended metadata, etc.

      7. Remain Legally Aware

     You need to stay updated on India’s CCPD rulings.

     8. Use an Inclusive Design Phase for Development

    It generally has three important phases, like:

  • Design Phase: Always use ARIA landmarks, along with easily accessible templates.
  • Development Phase: Companies need to properly integrate the automated accessibility-checking into CD/CI.
  • QA Phase: Don’t forget to do several assistive technology tests. Those need to include high contrast, screen readers, etc.

    9. Monitor and Maintain

   Proper monitoring and maintenance tasks are also vital. For this:

  • You need to schedule quarterly audits.
  • Track software updates. This will make sure that the accessibility won’t break.
  • Try to solicit channels for user feedbacks.

CCPD Fines in India

You have to enforce digital accessibility to avoid CCPD fines. In India and also other nations, enforcement of legal obligations has become quite urgent. This useful shift from voluntary compliance to mandatory legal standards is important. 

What Will Happen If You Fail To Stay Compliant?

If you don’t stay compliance of the regional rules regarding digital accessibility, you will face:

  • Notices: These are initial letters that will specify your violations. These will also ask you to respond within 10-15 days.
  • Penalties: You may face heavy penalties if you violate the rules.
  • Publicity: You may face court filings or press releases. All these will solidify your reputational exposure. Thus, you may face reduced publicity.
  • Compliance Orders: You may need to perform regular reporting and formal audits. 

In some situations, federal agencies may withdraw their contracts or grants. It may happen if they see that you are neglecting digital accessibility norms regularly.

Future Trends

So, after knowing the vital things about digital accessibility and legal obligations, let’s see its future trends:

  • Companies are now choosing AI-powered auditing procedures. This helps them to help smarter and faster prioritization.
  • Scope for Expansion: Companies are now including more websites under audit. Also, they are including PDFs, apps, and videos. 

Hence, digital accessibility has now become an important norm that all companies must follow. If a company fails to follow these norms, it will face some serious results. In this situation, choosing the right statutory compliance company in Vadodara will be your perfect choice. So, you can contact Trivedi & Associates Tecknical Services (P.) Ltd. for guidance.