What Is ADA Website Compliance Certification?

If you have a business registered in the US, you have to take care of many different requirements and one of them is the ADA – Americans with Disabilities Act. While there are many other specific legislations, like the California Assembly Bill N.434, the ADA is the one that everyone in the US has to follow, or they risk serious consequences. 

As the years pass and a lot of businesses move online, the number of ADA lawsuit cases continues to rise, with research showing an increase from 2,890 cases in 2019 to more than 4,000 cases in 2024. This growth has many business owners searching for ways to protect themselves.

However, there’s something you should know: there isn’t actually an official WCAG 2.2 AA or ADA certification for websites, and it wouldn’t make sense to have one. Web accessibility isn’t a one-time achievement – it’s an ongoing process that requires regular evaluation and updates. This is why the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide recommendations rather than a certification system, letting you adapt the requirements in a way that works best for you.

In this article, we’ll show you some practical alternatives to certification, including professional audits and staff training. Besides that, you’ll learn how to demonstrate your commitment to accessibility while creating a better experience for all your users.

The absence of official ADA certification is actually a good thing. It gives you the freedom to focus on what truly matters: making your website accessible to everyone instead of spending money on meaningless certificates. 

Here’s what you can do: 

As we mentioned, training your team in accessibility creates a much more lasting protection that goes beyond any certificate. Certificates can become outdated, but a well-trained team can adapt to new ADA compliance guidelines and technologies, preventing accessibility issues before they become a more serious problem.

If that sounds like a good solution for you, The A11Y Collective offers specialised courses that build lasting expertise in your organisation:

For example, “Web accessibility, the basics” is a course that contains all the necessary information for full WCAG and ADA compliance. It even comes with a completion certificate and 2.5 IAAP Continuing Accessibility Education Credits, giving you documented evidence of your team’s professional development in accessibility. 

With this training, everyone on your team will be able to:

To get the best results and meet accessibility standards, you need to combine automatic and manual testing methods because nothing can really replace human experiences. Besides that, while automated testing tools provide a good foundation by scanning your website regularly for common issues like missing alt text or poor colour contrast, they can’t catch everything. They might see that an alt text is missing, but they won’t be able to tell whether it makes any sense or if it’s enough to provide context. 

Manual checks, on the other hand (pun intended), see how your website works with keyboard-only controls, verify screen reader compatibility, and make sure that form fields have clear labels and instructions. These audits also often include checking whether the heading structure and page organisation make sense and testing all interactive elements like menus and buttons.

And if you want even more in-depth results, connect with people who use screen readers, voice control, or other assistive technologies. This is easily the best way to identify real-world accessibility barriers that other testing methods might miss, as their practical experience reveals usability issues that might not be obvious to others.

Whatever your approach is, you need to document all testing activities thoroughly. Keep detailed records of testing dates, methods used, problems found and their severity levels, steps taken to fix issues, and results of follow-up testing.

Speaking of testing, professional accessibility audits like the ones offered by The A11Y Collective are usually the safest bet, especially if you don’t have enough experience or connections with accessible technology users. Our expert auditors examine every aspect of your site’s accessibility against WCAG guidelines, from navigation and structure to content readability and media accessibility.

The audit process starts with a deep analysis of your website’s code and content. Auditors test how well your interactive elements work with different assistive technologies and check that all users can access your information effectively. They examine everything from colour contrast ratios to keyboard navigation patterns.

After that, you’ll receive a detailed findings report that explains each issue clearly and provides specific steps for fixing problems. This includes a practical implementation timeline and priority levels for different fixes. The report helps your team understand not just what needs changing but how to make those changes effectively.

Professional audits like these might look expensive, but they actually help prevent many costly mistakes by identifying issues early in your development process. To put it simply, fixing accessibility problems during development costs much less than retrofitting an existing site or handling potential legal issues later. 

However, if you still need some convincing on why proactive accessibility is so important for your organisation, check out our free course “Web accessibility, the business case”.

An accessibility statement serves as a clear communication tool between your organisation and your users, showing your website’s current accessibility status and your commitment to improvement. Here’s how to make the best of it: 

While there’s no official website accessibility certification, you still have everything you need to create an ADA-compliant online presence that serves all users and protects your business. So, instead of chasing a non-existent, universal certificate, you can focus on meaningful improvements that make a real difference.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines provide a solid foundation for building accessible websites. By investing in staff training and combining it with regular testing and professional audits, you’ll create lasting accessibility that benefits everyone. Through The A11Y Collective’s courses, your team will learn practical implementation techniques that align with these guidelines.

Think of accessibility as an ongoing practice rather than a one-time fix. Our training programmes help you build internal expertise so your team can spot issues early and maintain high accessibility standards. Whether you’re new to accessibility or looking to enhance your current practices, we offer courses suited to different roles and skill levels.

Ready to make your website truly accessible? Explore The A11Y Collective’s courses to build your team’s expertise, or contact us about professional audit services.