FurnitureDealer.Net Upgrades Websites To Be Accessible to People with Disabilities
Furniture World News Desk on
4/13/2016
FurnitureDealer.Net, a provider of websites and Internet marketing services to independent home furnishing retailers, has announced that they have upgraded its website platform to make its’ clients’ websites more accessible to people with disabilities, including visual and hearing impairments. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is a law that protects the rights of people with disabilities. Legal experts believe this law will soon be broadened to apply to business websites.
“We conducted extensive research and consulted with attorneys including the Home Furnishings Association’s legal counsel,” according to Andy Bernstein, FurnitureDealer.Net founder. “We concluded that in the near future bricks and mortar retailers in the U.S. will likely be required to comply with standards to make their websites accessible to people with disabilities,” said Bernstein. U.S. regulators have not yet defined website accessibility standards or compliance requirements. “We wanted to be out in front of the regulations, so we decided to take proactive action now to anticipate the ADA website standards and meet them on behalf of our clients.”
FurnitureDealer.Net believes U.S. regulators will adopt Web Accessibility Initiative standards supported by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. So FurnitureDealer.Net upgraded its platform to make websites of retailers in its Premium network fully compliant with these standards at no cost to clients. For example, FurnitureDealer.Net websites are now compatible with screen reader software that enables visually impaired users to hear text in audio or read it in braille.
According to Bernstein, “We’re committed to ensuring our clients remain on the forefront of the ever-changing technology and legal landscape. So we made a significant investment to overhaul many intricate aspects of our websites and our software platform at no cost to our clients. When regulators announce actual legal standards, we’re confident we can comply quickly with little or no additional modifications.” Recently FurnitureDealer.Net announced it made a significant investment to upgrade
clients to its new mobile-friendly Responsive platform at no cost.
More about FurnitureDealer.Net: FurnitureDealer.Net helps independent home furnishings retailers develop and implement successful omnichannel growth strategies that convert online furniture shoppers into local buyers. Clients include many of the 150 largest and most successful home furnishings retailers, including four of the past five NAHFA Retailers of the Year. FurnitureDealer.Net provides a world class website platform, publishes and maintains rich, up-to-date product catalogs for over 500 brands of home furnishings, appliances and consumer electronics, and helps clients succeed with business consulting, internet marketing and merchandising support. FurnitureDealer.Net also facilitates idea-sharing forums where a community of clients help each other innovate and solve problems. For more information visit
www.furnituredealer.net.
More About the Americans with Disabilities Act and Web Accessibility Initiative: For more information about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) please visit www.ada.gov. For more information about the Web Accessibility Initiative please visit
www.w3.org/WAI.