Designing for ADA means creating digital interfaces, physical spaces and communication materials that are in line with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. For a designer, that means people with disabilities should easily be able to use and access the products you create. Whether someone is reading a sign from far away or listening to a webpage through a screen reader, the design needs to give them the necessary information and means to continue.
A good way to approach ADA design is to think of design itself as a tool or service, with its usefulness depending on how well it serves the people who need it. At events such as New York Comic Con (NYCC), that consideration needs to extend to how long fans usually wait in lines and where they can find assistance if needed. The map, signs and event’s services should all contribute to ensuring everyone can take part comfortably.
Regardless of the design medium, we need to understand both the applicable standards and what someone will have to do to use our finished design. The experience of using the work should inform every design decision.
What Are the ADA Standards for Accessible Design?
The ADA standards for accessible design establish physical accessibility requirements for buildings and facilities. Published by the Department of Justice, the 2010 standards for new buildings address numerous features ranging from entrances and doorways to elevators and signs. They also apply to existing facilities, with different rules governing program access and barrier removal.1
For graphic designers, signage is one of the clearest places where these requirements need to be met. A good example is a bathroom sign; someone approaching it may need to identify the room visually, but others will rely on locating a physical sign and reading its raised uppercase sans-serif lettering and braille. In contrast, an arrow directing people toward the restrooms follows visual-sign requirements and doesn’t automatically require tactile text.
Placement is equally important, as it helps people find the information consistently. Tactile door signs should sit beside the latch side with certain exceptions.2 Their written content should be placed so that the lowest tactile-character baseline is at least 48 inches above the finished floor and the highest no more than 60. For temporary signs displayed for 7 days or less, these requirements do not need to be met, but those exemptions do not remove an event’s broader accessibility responsibilities.
For visual signage to be considered in line with ADA standards, the characters and background need a non-glare finish and light-on-dark or dark-on-light contrast with no specified contrast ratio. Material and lighting also need to be taken into consideration, as a finish that reflects a bright ceiling light can make otherwise clear lettering difficult to read.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by making sure your signs are ADA compliant, consider the checklist below:
Pre-Launch Checklist
- Confirm which requirements apply to the sign’s specific purpose and location
- Check required raised lettering, braille and visual character sizes
- Review contrast, finish and readability at the intended viewing distances
- Verify mounting height, door-side placement and clear approach space
- Match destination names and directions across both the signage and maps
As designers, we still have flexibility to navigate the ADA guidelines while sticking to our design philosophy. The guidelines add an additional dimension to our work, which is a novel opportunity to display our skills rather than an impediment.
ADA Compliant Web Design: Bridging WCAG and ADA
ADA compliant web design translates the same concern for access to physical events into the way a website is built and used. The original ADA does not provide a modern website specification, but the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a means for translating accessibility into technical requirements. They address various aspects ranging from the perceivability of information and operable controls to whether the content can be engaged with using assistive technology. These guidelines help us turn these considerations into practical design choices, with three key areas that deserve attention:
- Color contrast. Maintain a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text to meet WCAG’s AA requirement.3 This is aimed at people who need to distinguish the words from their background, whether they are reading a short button label or a full page of information.
- Semantic HTML and screen readers. Use clear H1/H2 headings, useful alt text for informative images and appropriate ARIA labels which help screen readers recite the page’s content aloud.4
- Keyboard navigation. People should be able to use dropdowns and operate interactive 3D elements without the need for a mouse, with a visible focus indicator such as a bolded outline to help them follow their position as they move between controls.
For me, the areas described above circle back to the idea of whether someone can accomplish what they came to do. The website design needs to support that task from start to finish and ensure every user can obtain the information they need.
Pre-Launch Checklist
- Check normal text against the 4.5:1 contrast requirement
- Review headings, control labels and image descriptions
- Complete the main tasks of your website using only a keyboard
- Test your website using a screen reader to ensure the content retains its meaning
Designing Event Maps & Wayfinding for All
In my career, I have designed maps used in mobile apps, websites and signage, which means that the final work needs to consider both digital WCAG and physical ADA guidelines.
For physical maps and signage, I need to consider viewing distance, lighting and placement so that people can find and read the information while on location. The map needs to have clearly marked accessible entrances, elevators and ramps with symbols that are easy to match to the map legend. Perhaps even more importantly, the map should clearly show how a visitor can reach these accessible routes and which floors they connect.
Digital maps present their own challenges, but also provide us with new ways to make that information available. For instance, zoom controls and high-contrast views can improve map readability, while keyboard navigation allows people to operate interactive features without a mouse. For someone using a screen reader, a structured list of locations and readable route information is essential to providing the details a short image description cannot carry.5
Across both formats, consistent names and symbols can help connect the digital information with the physical space. The true measure of success here is whether someone can plan their route on a phone, recognize the directions on a sign and then follow them when they reach the physical venue. In this way, event maps present a challenging but unique scope of work that brings digital and physical accessibility together, with each format reinforcing the other to help people understand the space.
Beyond Legal Compliance: Designing for Neurodiversity
The discussion around accessible design also needs to include the effort involved in understanding information. This refers to individuals with neurodivergence, dyslexia or other cognitive and learning difficulties that can affect how they interpret our work. These experiences vary widely, so we need to be careful about assuming that one layout or typeface will suit everyone.
I think there is a lot of value in stripping a design back to the basic function and communication it needs to provide. We can still give the work a distinctive character, but the information someone needs should have enough prominence to be found without consulting everything else first. One great way to approach this is to utilize white space and grouping effectively. By keeping related information together, using clear headings and choosing legible body fonts, we can give readers a more predictable path through the material. For instance, overly decorative lettering may suit a short display title, but it can also make longer instructions harder to follow.
Motion can introduce another cognitive demand which we should take into account. Auto-playing video or animated backgrounds may look great and engaging, but they can also distract people from what they are trying to read. The best way to approach this while still expressing your design creativity is to provide control over content that moves or plays automatically, enabling users to disable it if they prefer.
W3C’s cognitive accessibility guidance develops these ideas beyond the requirements of WCAG, including other aspects such as clear language and support for people who find memory-heavy tasks difficult.6 For designers, that means checking whether simplifying the presentation has actually made the task easier for users. Essential directions and labels still need to be present, but ensuring they are clear is the reason for simplifying the design in the first place.
Tools to Audit Your Designs for Accessibility
Accessibility becomes easier to navigate when we check our decisions while they are still being made. A contrast problem is easier to resolve before a palette has been used and spread across an entire website or signage system. The same applies to reading order and the amount of information our content needs to carry.
Several tools can help us examine the work before handoff:
- Lighthouse. This tool provides automated checks on webpages which can help us identify a range of common accessibility issues. The Lighthouse score should be used only as a starting point for further investigation, as manual checks are not included in it.
- WAVE. The Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool adds visual feedback to a page so we can inspect potential errors, structure and labels in context.
- Stark. This enables us to bring contrast checking and vision simulation into our design workflows in Figma. It is useful for determining whether colors and elements remain distinguishable as our design develops live.
- Adobe Illustrator’s color-vision proofing. Using Adobe’s built-in tool, we can inspect physical signage palettes for common forms of color blindness.
Importantly, these tools give us useful evidence, but our final work still needs human judgment. Testing relevant tasks with disabled users can help us reveal difficulties that a technical review can miss.7
Ensuring our design is accessible takes effort, and we often discover problems that are not obvious at the start. I think what matters most is being committed to listening and improving, using what we learn from the people using our work to shape each new version. Over time, these lessons should become an integral part of how we design, making accessibility a natural consideration in all of our design decisions.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Justice, “ADA Standards for Accessible Design,” accessed September 22, 2026.1
- U.S. Access Board, ADA Accessibility Standards, §216, “Signs,” and §703, “Signs,” accessed September 22, 2026.2
- World Wide Web Consortium, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, W3C Recommendation, December 12, 2024.3
- World Wide Web Consortium, “Read Me First,” ARIA Authoring Practices Guide, accessed September 22, 2026.4
- U.S. Department of Justice, “ADA Requirements: Effective Communication,” last modified February 28, 2020.5
- World Wide Web Consortium, Making Content Usable for People with Cognitive and Learning Disabilities, W3C Working Group Note, April 29, 2021.6
- World Wide Web Consortium, “Involving Users in Evaluating Web Accessibility,” Web Accessibility Initiative, last modified April 30, 2024.7