ADA & WCAG 2.1 AA Remediation for US Business Websites

Accessibility auditing and hands-on remediation for US client sites — keyboard navigation, screen-reader semantics, contrast and forms brought to WCAG 2.1 AA, without overlay widgets.

During my time with Cloud Nine Web Design in Morris, Illinois, accessibility became one of my core specialisms. US businesses face real legal exposure under the ADA, and the demand letters landing in client inboxes are not theoretical. My job was to make sites genuinely usable — not to paste in an overlay widget and hope.

The approach

Overlay tools are the most common “solution” sold to US small businesses, and they are the worst one. They do not fix the underlying markup, they frequently break screen readers that users already have configured, and they have been named in lawsuits themselves. Everything I do is source-level remediation.

1. Audit against the real standard

  • Automated scanning (axe, WAVE, Lighthouse) to catch the mechanical 30%.
  • Manual keyboard-only traversal of every template — because tab order, focus traps and skip links are where automated tools go quiet.
  • Screen-reader passes (NVDA, VoiceOver) on the pages that actually matter: home, services, contact, checkout.
  • Colour-contrast measurement against real backgrounds, including text over images and over brand colours.

2. Fix it in the source

  • Semantics: real landmarks, a single logical H1, heading order that reflects document structure, lists marked up as lists.
  • Keyboard: visible focus styles on every interactive element, logical tab order, working skip links, no keyboard traps in modals or menus.
  • Forms: programmatically associated labels, error messages tied to their fields, required state announced, no placeholder-as-label.
  • Media: meaningful alt text on content images, empty alt on decorative ones, captions and transcripts where video carries information.
  • Interactive components: accordions, tabs, sliders and dropdowns rebuilt with correct ARIA roles and states, or replaced with native elements where native wins.
  • Contrast: palette adjustments that hold the brand while clearing 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text and UI components.

3. Document and hand over

Every engagement ends with a written conformance summary: what was tested, what was fixed, what remains, and an accessibility statement the client can publish. That document is what matters if a complaint ever arrives.

What is typically involved

  • Custom and off-the-shelf WordPress themes brought to AA.
  • Page-builder sites (Elementor, Divi, Bricks, Oxygen, Breakdance) remediated without rebuilding from scratch.
  • WooCommerce flows — product pages, cart and checkout — made keyboard and screen-reader complete.
  • Training the client’s team so new content does not undo the work.
A note for agency owners

Accessibility is one of the easiest services to add to a retainer and one of the hardest to deliver credibly. I work white-label on exactly this: your brand on the report, my hands on the code.

Let's talk about your project.

Free 30-minute call and a written quote. I will tell you if I am not the right fit.