By Jabari Zion
If your business has more than 15employees, you must ensure it adheres to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations. ADA mandates that every company should provide reasonable accommodations for employees and consumers with disabilities. One of those accommodations is to have accessible entryways to individuals with disabilities and an ADA-compliant website. Let’s look at the different ways to make your business ADA compliant.
Identify architectural barriers
Architectural barriers for workers and customers with disabilities include stairs, steps at a doorway or entryway, and hard-to-reach areas in your store. As such, you must identify all architectural barriers in your workplace, remove them or provide other reasonable accommodations such as a tactile dome, a detectible warning surfaces.
For instance, if your entryway has steps or stairs, you should have an alternative with no steps or provisions like a ramp or elevator. Other than that, you should include visible signage on the entryway to indicate the alternative entrance for disabled individuals.
ADA compliant signage
If using signs to communicate, they must be ADA compliant in terms of the height, mounting location, and protruding sign requirements. generally, the signage must include the following aspects:
- High contrast for colors.
- Include tactile or braille characters to make it easy for a visually impaired person to read.
- Large fonts that are easy to read.
- Correct symbols, e.g., wheelchair symbol.
Bronze and aluminum ADA signage come in handy for long-lasting signage.
Ensure accessible parking lot and entrances
The ADA requires that you have an accessible parking lot for individuals with disabilities. One way of achieving that is through ramps, especially if you have an entryway with stairs or steps and cannot make modifications or provide an alternative entry. However, you must have signage to identify these entrances for people with disabilities.
ADA compliant website
The online community is also an essential part of your business. Your business website provides an excellent way to brand and attract customers through online platforms. It should also be accessible to the disability community, including the visually, hearing, and intellectually impaired individuals. The Website Content Accessibility Guidelines have specific standards for making a website accessible to people with disabilities.
Use comfortable furniture
If you have workers with a disability as part of your staff, you need to make them comfortable. ADA requires that office chairs and desks be a certain height to accommodate wheelchair users. You can use modern desks that can be adjusted to move up or down with just a push of a button.
Upgrade restrooms
ADA also requires that your business have at least one ADA-compliant restroom. Some of the modifications include:
- Low door hooks for accessibility for wheelchair users.
- Handrails on either side of the stall.
- A hand-controlled or automatic toilet flush handle.
- A wheelchair-accessible sink.
conclusion
These are some of the ADA requirements your business building should meet. You must read and understand all the ADA requirements your business should meet to ensure you are compliant. Otherwise, you risk being legally sued by a worker or customer with a disability.
