Digital accessibility ensures inclusivity in manufacturing, protecting against lawsuits, boosting business growth, empowering employees, and improving SEO. Through automated, manual, and user testing, manufacturers can create accessible, compliant, and user-friendly digital tools.

Digital accessibility in the manufacturing industry isn't just a buzzword but a necessity. This blog covers what it is, its importance, and information on some basic testing methods.

What is Digital Accessibility?
Digital accessibility, often called web accessibility, ensures that everyone, regardless of their abilities, can seamlessly access your digital services and websites. This includes everything, from PDFs and websites to online forms. The goal is simple: design digital products so they work for everyone, whether they're using assistive technology or not.

Importance of Digital Accessibility in Manufacturing
Digital accessibility is a major problem in today's Industry 4.0. Where innovation is riding the big wave, adopting accessibility is becoming an issue. But having digital accessibility is important for several reasons, here's why:

1. Protection Against Lawsuits
For manufacturing businesses, an inaccessible website can drive away customers and limit access to skilled workers with disabilities, worsening the labor shortage. Further, not following ADA regulations in manufacturing can lead to heavy lawsuits with costly penalties and a tarnished company image. One way you can begin making your manufacturing business more digitally accessible is by incorporating ADA-compliant videos that you run internally.

2. Smart Move for Business Expandability
Making your e-commerce site accessible for people with disabilities isn't just the right thing to do, it's also a smart business strategy. When you make your site accessible, you're opening your virtual doors to a larger pool of potential customers, which means more sales. By investing in creating an accessible and inclusive user experience, you're setting up your business for a solid return on investment. The manufacturing sector, where precision and ease of use are crucial, stands to gain a lot by ensuring customers can quickly and easily get what they need, no matter their abilities.

3. More Empowerment for Those with Disabilities
While some businesses say they are committed to making their workplaces accessible to all, these adjustments are majorly made in the physical environment. The digital aspect of the manufacturing industry needs to be touched upon.

As a business owner, ask yourself—"are your project management software, time-tracking tools, and email programs tailored to be accessible to people with disabilities as well?" It's extremely necessary to make digital experiences accessible to employees with disabilities as well to make sure your entire workforce remains empowered.

4. Improved Website Search
Even the Google Search Engine Result Page (SERP) rewards you for having an accessible website. As businesses rush to adapt their operations and meet the growing demand for online services, most customers have fully embraced digital channels, making the online experience more critical than ever.
If you want your website to meet customer expectations and keep them coming back, it's essential to focus on delivering a user-centered design that makes it easy for visitors to find what they need. Here's the kicker: many accessibility best practices also double as solid SEO strategies, such as:

● Alt text for images
● Simple navigation with sitemaps
● Easy-to-read content
● Internal site search

Testing for Digital Accessibility
Modern manufacturing plants are cutting-edge hubs of technology, meticulously inspected and held to strict quality and safety standards. However, when it comes to your company's website, accessibility reviews don't usually fall into this same structured process.

To ensure your website aligns with ADA compliance, it's crucial to perform a comprehensive evaluation of various digital tools your business relies on. You can perform this testing within three tiers:

● Automated Testing: This begins with using automated tools that suggest general WCAG guidelines, criteria links, and corrections to help you comply with necessary ADA and WCAG guidelines.

● Manual Testing: This digital accessibility testing requires running your digital content through different assistive technologies, like screen magnifiers and screen readers.

● User Testing: As the name suggests, an actual user - someone with disabilities or someone with limited digital knowledge - tests the service or product you provide and gives their feedback.

Conclusion
Bringing more inclusivity is a necessity in today's manufacturing sector. This also includes making changes to your digital products for customers and your employees. We hope reading this article helped you understand the importance of digital accessibility and how to conduct some basic testing for it!