Digital Accessibility is Impacting the Growth of your Shopping Center & Bottom Line
Accessible Shopping Centers will Thrive
What is Web Accessibility?
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards.
These Web standards include the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) defining how to make Web content more accessible to people with disabilities. Accessibility involves a wide range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities.
Which Accessibility Guideline should my website follow?
WCAG guidelines are referenced worldwide by each country and jurisdiction when creating their own set of Web Accessibility standards, for example the “American with Disabilities Act” (ADA), “The Canadian with Disabilities Act” (ACA, “Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act” AODA, etc.
Each shopping center should follow the guidelines in which jurisdiction their center operates in and the WCAG guidelines are the best place to start. It is the responsibility of each website owner/operator to ensure their website is web accessible.
Reasons to Make your Shopping Center Website Accessible
Social Responsibility
“Doing the Right Thing” Making your website accessible is your responsibility and making it inclusive to everyone both able bodied as well as users with disabilities is the right thing to do.
Increase Customer Base
Making your website accessible will help reach a larger audience and therefore increasing the chances of attracting more shoppers.
Improve Reputation
Increase shopper loyalty by having an accessible website and letting shoppers know that you’re looking out for them. Maintaining an accessible website will help keep shoppers coming back and help build shopper retention and loyalty.
Improve Search Results
Search engines favor accessible websites in their search result rankings. Google will automatically put your website higher on their search results knowing that it will work for a wider audience.
Avoid Legal Penalties
Making your website accessible will help to avoid legal monetary penalties and/or fines immediately and in the long term.
Mall Maverick is Here to Help
We are proud to partner with digital governance software industry leaders, Monsido to ensure our clients have access to best in class Accessibility Services.
Contact us to learn more about our Accessibility Services starting with a WCAG Compliance Audit.
The WCAG Compliance Audit will help assess and determine the current status of your website by measuring it against the current WCAG guidelines. WCAG compliance will be an ongoing responsibility to manage, with constant website updates throughout the year, we recommend periodic audits to match.
