ADA Compliance For Pharma & Biotech Websites
Tip #4 For Managing a Pharmaceutical or Biotech Website Redesign
TL:DR: Doing the right thing isn’t hard if you start early.
The situation: Your pharmaceutical or biotechnology company is small but growing. And something noteworthy happened: it got funding, is about to announce results, launch a product or go public. It’s time for the next level of website.
Pharmaceutical companies and marketing agencies are paying attention to ADA website compliance because … well, because we’ve heard about the lawsuits.
Caveat: I’m not a lawyer, so my perspective is from a functional and practical perspective. This isn’t legal advice.
First, let’s be honest about what you’re trying to accomplish, which is to launch a great website as efficiently as possible while doing the right thing and not getting sued.
Website ADA compliance can be a complex and controversial issue. Technical issues, design issues, legal issues, processes for achieving compliance and maintaining it … and at the same time there is no government agency that will give you a “compliant seal of approval.” You do your best.
So, here’s what we tell our clients: start at the design phase. Whoever you hire to design the site should be familiar with ADA basics and the process for reviewing designs for ADA compliance. So, be sure the design is as ADA compliant as possible before you start building the website.
Then, when the site is in the alpha phase (or first technical review), run tests to get a report that shows where the site needs improvement. You and your web design team should use the report to take care of the issues, then run another report to confirm the changes solved the issues. Maybe you need to do another round of refinements and follow this process again.
In any event, that’s the process and we’re not going to go into the technical details in this article. Just be sure to work with an agency that understands this stuff!
We use https://wave.webaim.org/ for the ADA compliance reporting.
Some good news: Doing ADA compliance work is all upside. Not only will you help your users with disabilities, but you’ll reduce the risk of lawsuits and improve SEO and GEO! Nice.
The most common challenge: Brand style.
The technical side of ADA compliance (at least for typical pharma sites) isn’t the biggest hurdle. On the other hand, if your brand’s style (corporate or product) has low-contrast colors, you’ve got a bit of a design challenge ahead of you! Text color contrast between the text and background is an ADA basic requirement. Compromises will be made.
Ultimately, this article is about doing the absolute minimum to get a solid website launched while helping folks with disabilities and avoiding a lawsuit. When your business grows or your website starts incorporating more complex front-end functionality (like transactions), you might consider hiring a consultant or agency to get your ADA compliance even more solid.
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