ADA-Compliant Web Design: Why Accessibility Matters for Dallas Businesses in 2025

ADA-compliant sites aren’t just “nice to have” add-ons. They’re part of good service, risk management, and search visibility. In 2025, two things are true at once: the Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to say the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to digital experiences for businesses open to the public, and courts have allowed lawsuits to move forward when sites or apps lock people out. If you manage web design Dallas projects, it’s time to treat ADA compliance and accessible web design as core requirements, not side projects.

The current bar: what the law and standards say

The DOJ’s 2022 guidance makes clear that state, local governments, and public-facing businesses must provide accessible web content under the ADA. In April 2024, the DOJ issued a Title II rule requiring state and local sites and apps to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. While aimed at public entities, it shows how federal regulators expect accessibility to be handled. Private businesses still fall under the ADA, and WCAG AA remains the practical standard even without a finalized Title III rule.

Courts have reinforced this direction. In Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, the Ninth Circuit upheld an ADA claim against an inaccessible site and app; the Supreme Court left that decision intact. Ongoing cases nationwide underline the same point: Dallas businesses with public-facing sites should build and maintain them for accessibility.

Texas agencies, universities, and public bodies already comply with 1 TAC 206/213, which aligns with federal standards. These frameworks offer helpful models for private companies in procurement, QA, and governance.

Why it matters to your customers (and your numbers)

More than 1 in 4 U.S. adults report a disability, according to the CDC’s 2025 update. That includes vision, hearing, mobility, and cognitive considerations that affect how people browse, buy, book, and contact support. If your site is hard to use with a keyboard, has low color contrast, or hides essential information inside inaccessible controls, you’re turning away a large share of your audience.

Accessibility also aligns with how search engines understand content. Google’s guidance encourages descriptive alt text, relevant surrounding copy, and image context—practices that help people using screen readers and can improve image visibility. Accessibility isn’t a direct ranking factor; however, many accessibility tasks overlap with quality signals (clear content, reliable markup, better engagement), which can support performance over time.

Finally, the market still has a long way to go, which means there’s upside for teams that commit now. WebAIM’s 2025 Million report found 94.8% of homepages tested had detectable WCAG failures—slightly better than 2024 but still widespread. Getting ahead of this raises the usefulness of your site and lowers legal risk.

WCAG 2.2: what changed and what to aim for in 2025

WCAG 2.2 (published as a W3C Recommendation) added nine success criteria and removed one obsolete criterion. The new items put extra attention on things like focus appearance, target sizes for touch, and patterns that help users complete tasks. If you’re planning site updates in Dallas this year, treat WCAG 2.1/2.2 Level AA as your target; if your contracts or policies still reference 2.0 or 2.1, 2.2 is designed to be backward-compatible.

See also: Technological Changes Altering Business in 2025

What good looks like on real pages

You don’t need to overhaul your brand to build an accessible site. You do need to apply consistent patterns. Here are areas that make the largest impact for web design Dallas teams.

Text and color. WCAG AA calls for 4.5:1 contrast for normal text and 3:1 for large text; non-text UI components should be at least 3:1. This is measurable with free tools and should be part of your design system and QA. Clear contrast helps everyone, including users on mobile in strong light.

Images and alt text. Use alt text that conveys the purpose of the image in context; leave alt=”” for purely decorative images. Place images near relevant copy. Google’s own docs recommend descriptive filenames and alt text, which doubles as good accessibility practice.

Keyboard and focus. Every link, button, and form control must be reachable by keyboard. Focus must be visible and not trapped. Many custom components break here. WCAG 2.2’s updates around focus appearance make this even more important.

Forms. Labels should be programmatically associated with inputs; errors should be clear and announced; instructions should not rely on color alone. This reduces abandoned submissions and support tickets.

Multimedia. Provide captions for prerecorded video and transcripts for audio. Besides meeting WCAG, this helps with comprehension in noisy environments and boosts watch-through rates.

Interactive patterns. Accordions, disclosure widgets, and dialog modals must use correct semantics and ARIA states. For accordions, use real <button> controls inside headings; update aria-expanded and aria-controls properly. Poorly coded widgets are a common pain point for screen reader and keyboard users.

A Dallas-ready process you can actually keep up

Accessibility is a process, not a one-time fix. To make ADA compliance workable on real schedules, fold it into your standard operating rhythm.

Plan with WCAG AA from the start. Keep a simple checklist for designers, writers, and developers, and set design tokens that meet contrast and text size rules by default. Use ready-made templates for navigation, cards, modals, and accordions that already follow WAI-ARIA patterns.

Test with both tools and people. Automated scans catch common issues, but pair them with manual checks—keyboard runs, screen reader spot tests, and quick reviews of headings and links. Texas agencies already do this routinely, and private teams can apply the same habit.

Document and assign ownership. Make accessibility part of every release with a clear “go/no-go” check. Give someone ownership of content, code, and audits. For vendors, require WCAG AA compliance in contracts, much like state buyers use accessibility questionnaires.

Mind the local context. Public projects in Texas must follow 1 TAC 206/213 rules, and private Dallas companies can borrow these standards for coordinators, exceptions, and training.

Risk, enforcement, and the 2025 trend line

DOJ’s Title II rule is now in force for government sites and apps, with phase-in periods. Private businesses continue to face suits and demand letters under Title III when websites or apps cannot be used with assistive tech. UsableNet’s tracking shows high activity through the end of 2024 into 2025 for digital accessibility filings across federal and key state courts.

Case law is still uneven across circuits, but the broad direction is clear: if your digital experiences are tied to a physical place of public accommodation (which covers most retail and service locations), courts are receptive to claims when those experiences are not accessible. Accessible web design is the practical way to reduce this risk while serving more customers.

SEO and accessibility: how they meet

Google does not list “accessibility” as a direct ranking factor. Still, several accessibility tasks overlap with SEO and usability. Descriptive alt text informs image understanding; well-structured headings support comprehension; good contrast and readable type lower bounce; accessible components make more of your content actually reachable and indexable. Adopt these for people first; if search performance improves, treat it as a downstream benefit.

A practical checklist for your next sprint

To keep bullets to a minimum, use this as a short reference and turn it into stories and tasks in your tracker.

Start with color and text: confirm tokens meet AA ratios, adjust brand combos if needed, and set alternates for hover and focus. Validate with a contrast checker and spot-check across backgrounds.

Check images and media: add or refine alt text where meaningful, leave decorative images silent, and keep visuals near relevant copy. Provide captions and transcripts—Google’s image guidelines align with these steps, so you improve accessibility and search together.

Strengthen core components: make menus, accordions, tabs, and dialogs use proper roles and states. Test keyboard reachability and focus. If you use a component library, add unit tests and manual checks so updates don’t break accessibility.

Improve forms: link labels to inputs, show errors in text, avoid color-only cues, and add clear hints. This reduces abandoned carts and extra support requests.

Keep a governance loop: run automated scans, keyboard tests, and screen reader spot checks (NVDA, VoiceOver), plus one non-developer review for clarity. Log issues with owners and priorities so fixes ship regularly, not just in yearly sweeps.

How a Dallas partner can help

If you need outside help, look for a team that treats accessibility as a habit embedded in content, design, and development—not as a bolt-on fix. For web design Dallas projects, that means writing accessible alt text in your CMS, setting design tokens that pass AA, using ARIA patterns for interactive elements, and adding accountability to your release process. It also means mapping site templates to WCAG 2.2 AA and documenting the handful of tricky edge cases (complex tables, charts, interactive maps).

That approach aligns with DOJ expectations and the way Texas public bodies already purchase and review digital services. It’s simpler for your staff to maintain, easier for vendors to follow, and better for customers who just want to complete a task without friction.