How The ADA Impacts Digital Technologies
An often overlooked virtue of web, mobile and kiosk applications are the ADA benefits to the disabled. How does the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) impact your brand digital technologies?
For many the technology may be just about convenience, but for others, it can be the difference between your establishment and somewhere else. On top of this, if your brand lacks ADA compliance, you could be setting yourself up for fees and lawsuits.
Juke Slot, a provider of kiosk solutions, saw this need and created the technology to transform a traditional self-service kiosk to display a virtual avatar that communicates directly with the hard of hearing via sign language.
Here’s a scenario that happens probably more often than not: A hearing-impaired customer is unable to communicate to the restaurant cashier what, exactly, they want to order, so they write it down. The handwriting is difficult to read, and so the order is incorrect, and must be remade.
Web, mobile, and kiosk application technology solutions help eliminate this miscommunication by ensuring that those with language barriers or hearing disabilities are not misunderstood. Those apps are specifically developed to offer features and functionality to be used by those who may be handicapped.
According to the National Institute of Deafness and other Communications Disorders, about 15 percent of Americans (~49 million ppl) are deaf or hard of hearing — for the most part, restaurants cater to these folks with a piece of paper and a pen or pencil, asking them to write down their order but the truth is, most deaf people read and write at below a fourth-grade level.
The ADA requires brands should provide disabled customers the ability to order, purchase, and enjoy a meal just as any other patron.
Unfortunately, within the last few years, lawsuits from the deaf or hearing-impaired have increased tremendously.
This may be a result of more and more hearing-impaired individuals becoming aware of their rights, and the increasingly perceived ease at which restaurants and other businesses can assist and provide proper assistance.
In short, the digital technology solution is available in the market, and people feel businesses should provide it.
To consider: Things many people take for granted, like navigating the internet, is particularly challenging for people with vision impairments.
There are specialized web browsers and digital app software that can assist these individuals, so it might be good to discuss these things with your developer.
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Here are some preliminary suggestions for creating an ADA-Compliant website:
Images
Screen readers and braille displays are two technologies that allow people with visual impairment to use the internet.
But neither device can interpret photographs or other images. So, in order to make images work for these devices, you need to add a text equivalent to all images.
All tags should be descriptive of the photo content and not the page content (avoid things like “picture1”). To be safe, add these descriptors, or alt-tags, to all images from website background to photos used in each page.
Color and Font Size Choice
Unfortunately, things like this often are not a “one size fits all” situation, for instance, some individuals may see better with light text on a dark background, while others may require the opposite.
The takeaway: Users should be able to manipulate these choices in their browser, so your online ordering design should ensure that possibility.
Also remember to include a text size option on your web, mobile or kiosk app so people can choose a size that helps them read most easily.
Videos
For video content, it’s best to make them closed captioning enabled for people who suffer form hearing loss, and that they avoid things like rapidly flashing lights, or other things that may disrupt individuals who suffer from seizures.
Or you could simply add your own captions or text transcript of the video content.
Overall, it is important to create predictable, readable, and adaptable content that can be presented in a variety of ways without losing information that is valuable to your customers.
Making sure your web, mobile, kiosk and tableside app conforms to ADA regulations is not only good business sense, but will also save you headaches from grievances and lawsuits.
Originally published on DineEngine here.
