A water treatment facility’s website is often the primary point of contact for residents, businesses, and regulatory agencies that utilize water services. But accessibility isn’t just about convenience; it’s a legal requirement. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), public entities and many private organizations must ensure that their websites are usable by everyone, including individuals with disabilities.
For water treatment facilities, this means more than just meeting compliance checklists; it’s about providing equal access to critical information like water quality reports, service updates, and emergency notices. Failing to comply can lead to costly lawsuits, damaged public trust, and missed opportunities to serve your community effectively.
Inclind works with water treatment facilities and other public utilities to provide strategic, high-level website design and development services. Our work includes analyzing clients’ websites to ensure that they comply with the latest guidelines for web accessibility. To learn more about our website design, development, and support services for water treatment facilities, reach out today to talk to our team.
How the ADA Requirements Apply to Water Utility Websites
Most business owners understand that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires them to make certain physical changes to their place of business to accommodate people with disabilities. For example, at a water treatment facility, there might be handicapped parking spaces, curb cuts for wheelchairs, and accessible stalls in the bathrooms. These types of changes are necessary to ensure that everyone, including members of the general public, contractors who may do work at the facility, and employees, has full access.
Another aspect of the ADA might surprise site owners, however. Beyond physical changes to buildings and parking lots, this law also requires websites to be accessible. This means designing and developing a website so that both individuals with and without disabilities can use it.
The concept of web accessibility might seem a bit strange or incredibly hard to implement. However, given that so much of modern life revolves around the internet in some way, it makes sense. After all, it is only fair that everyone should have access to the same information and customer service.
For example, a person with epilepsy who is affected by flashing lights has an account with the local water authority. They want to check the website to learn about what they can and cannot flush or dump in their drains. Unfortunately, the water treatment website includes flashing graphics that could potentially trigger a seizure. This means that this particular customer can’t use the website because of his disability, which is a type of discrimination.
Both federal law (through the ADA) and the laws of many states require web accessibility. Internationally, the European Union also mandates that websites be accessible. A violation of these laws could mean a fine, lawsuits, and other potential consequences.
Even if your water treatment facility never faces a lawsuit for lack of accessibility, it still makes sense to have an accessible website. All of your customers should be able to easily access the information that they need, regardless of their abilities. An accessible website is an important part of any digital strategy and can even help your organization save money by ensuring that customers can access information without the help of a customer service agent.
Principles of web accessibility also tend to make for a better website experience for everyone. For example, using a high contrast font is great for people who use screen readers as an adaptive technology. It is also great for all users of your website, as anyone who has struggled to read light-colored text against a light background knows.
At first glance, web accessibility might seem like a burden. In reality, it is actually an opportunity to make your water treatment facility website better for all of your customers. Not only will you reduce your legal risks by making your website accessible, but you will also increase visibility and usability, which benefits your organization as well as the public as a whole.
How to Make Your Water Treatment Website ADA Compliant
Water treatment facilities may be privately or publicly owned and operated. Regardless of whether your facility is private or part of a state or local government, your website must still comply with the ADA. This means that you must implement web accessibility.
While there are anti-discrimination laws governing web accessibility, the federal government does not actually provide guidance on how to make a website accessible. Fortunately, there are technical standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and the Section 508 Standards, that provide specific criteria for making your website accessible. These standards break accessibility down into four key areas. Your website must be (1) perceivable; (2) operable; (3) understandable; and (4) robust.
Perceivable
Perceivable means that the information on a website and its user interface components are presented in a way that users can perceive. This may include:
- Providing text alternatives for content that doesn’t include text so that it can be changed into other forms (such as adding closed captioning for videos or adding alt text to any images or graphics)
- Using audio descriptions, media alternatives, and/or captions for video content
- Having alternatives for time-based media that offer the equivalent information as in live audio-only content
- Ensuring that information, structure, and relationships that are conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available through text
- Creating content that can be presented in different ways without losing information or structure
- Allowing content to be changed to a different display orientation (such as from portrait to landscape)
- Avoiding the use of shape, size, color, or visual location as the only visual way of conveying information
- Not using color as the only visual means of conveying information
- Adding a stop or pause button for any content that auto-plays for more than 3 seconds
- Using high contrast colors with a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 (for example, white text on a black background instead of gray text on a black background)
- Allowing users to resize text or enhance contrast
- When possible, use text rather than images to convey information
- Allowing text to be resized up to 200% without loss of content or functionality.
These standards include a great deal of technical detail regarding when these adaptations must be made and how they should be implemented. Generally, perceivability refers to ensuring that website content is accessible to people with disabilities by incorporating features such as captioning, text adaptation options, and text alternatives.
Operable
Operable means that both user interface components and navigation are capable of being operated by people with disabilities. This may include:
- Making all functionality operable through a keyboard (instead of exclusively through a mouse, such as by allowing users to use the tab button to navigate through a screen or to different areas of a form).
- Avoiding the use of timing as an essential part of an event or activity presented by the content (i.e., a person has to click within a few seconds to access content)
- Providing the option to pause, stop, or hide moving, blinking, scrolling, or auto-updating information (such as a scrolling display that provides the latest news and updates
- Warning users before a time-out due to inactivity
- Allowing users to disable motion animation that is triggered by interaction
- Using titles for all pages, with enough information to describe that page’s topic or purpose, along with headings and labels
- Making sure that the purpose of a link can be identified from the link text alone
- Meeting the minimum size for targets for pointer inputs (such as making clickable buttons large enough for people to navigate to and click on).
- Allowing users to continue an activity during an authenticated session without loss of data after re-authentication.
Website operability makes sure that people who visit a website can use it to access or input information, regardless of ability. Broadly, this includes ensuring that users have sufficient time to access content, that the website can be navigated using a keyboard, avoiding the use of content that could trigger seizures, and providing options for entering information.
Understandable
Understandable means that the information and operation of the user interface can be understood by visitors. This includes:
- The language of each page can be determined using a program (so that a person using an adaptive device can determine this information)
- Providing a method to identify specific definitions of words or phrases that are used in an unusual way (such as jargon)
- Offering a way to identify abbreviations
- Including supplemental content for text that requires more advanced reading levels
- If necessary for context and understanding, provide a way to identify how words are pronounced.
- Using consistent navigational mechanisms
- Identifying input errors for users (i.e., an alert that a user failed to enter their email address on a form)
- Including labels or instructions when content requires user input
- Making sure that any authentication processes are accessible (such as having alternatives to authentication methods, like identifying items in images)
Making a website understandable means that the site is both readable and predictable. It also requires websites to assist users when inputting information (such as offering labels and instructions).
Robust
Robust means that a wide variety of user agents, like assistive technologies such as screen readers can interpret the content. This involves a lot of work on the back-end of a website to ensure that computer programs can accurately determine the site's content.
How To Improve Accessibility For Your Water Treatment Facility Website
The technical guidance for website accessibility may seem as though it is written in a foreign language. If you aren’t a website developer, then a lot of these requirements may be difficult to decipher. While the guidance itself is meant for computer scientists, there are many options for web accessibility that you may already use. This includes:
- Use alt text for images so that when a person uses technology to view a website, it can describe any images to the user (for example, a graphic of the wastewater treatment process might include alt text that describes the process)
- Offer captions and transcripts for any multimedia content, including podcasts, videos, visual elements, and recordings
- Use keyboard navigation so that people can go through your website without the use of a mouse by using arrow keys, tab, space, and enter
- Use clear, concise language that is easy for users of all abilities to understand
- Use labels and provide clear instructions for form fields, plus error messages when users make a mistake.
- Structure the website logically with a consistent layout
Remember: even if you are never sued or cited for lack of accessibility, implementing this guidance is a smart business decision. Accessible websites tend to be much more user-friendly, making them more attractive. Think of it this way: when you make your website accessible, your customers will find it much easier to get the information that they need. That benefits everyone, including your organization as well as the community as a whole.
Of course, many of these web accessibility standards require a certain amount of technical skill. At Inclind, we offer accessibility audits for water treatment facilities to help you discover areas for improvement. With the audit in hand, we can implement any necessary changes to achieve optimal accessibility, usability, and function.
Find & Fix Accessibility Issues With An Accessibility Audit From Inclind
Website accessibility isn’t a trend or something that is nice to have. Both private and public utilities are required under federal law to make their websites accessible. The bonus of having an accessible website is that it is actually a far better site for all users. Inclind can help you find accessibility issues with a thorough accessibility audit and then implement fixes for you.
At Inclind, our team of award-winning website designers and developers takes particular interest in making websites accessible for all users. We offer a range of web development and design services, including accessibility audits, custom integrations, support and maintenance, site redesigns, and automated content management. We take a holistic, long-term view of website development, with an eye towards future growth and sustainability.
We're happy to talk if you’d like to learn more about our accessibility compliance and other website development services for water treatment facilities. You can fill out our online contact form, call us at 800-604-8139, or hit the live chat button to talk to one of our experts about your website.