Making a small business welcoming to everyone in a community includes making it welcoming to customers with disabilities. Written by the experts at the Northeast ADA Center, and refined with input from Certified ADA Coordinators from around the country, this toolkit explains how to improve the accessibility of a small business, with commonsense suggestions and helpful guidance on following Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We cover common concerns such as parking, accessibility in older buildings, service animals, and customer service.
Your potential customer base cares about accessibility. People with disabilities—including mobility disabilities, blindness and low vision, and deafness and hard-of-hearing—want to buy from small businesses, and they represent the third largest market segment in the United States—over 50 million people. Plus, they may bring friends or family when they shop, dine, get a haircut, play minigolf, and so on.
Making the goods and services of a small business accessible isn’t just a nice idea that brings in more customers. It’s also required by the ADA. The ADA is a civil rights law that aims to allow people with disabilities to live independently and to participate equally in their community and workplace.
This toolkit helps you understand why accessibility is important for so many people and their families, and how you can make your business more welcoming and accessible to all your customers. Because there are so many different types of disabilities, you may not be aware of all the ways you can improve accessibility.
You could read every page in this toolkit from start to finish, but you should feel free to skip around in any way that is helpful to you. We hope you will bookmark the site and visit it whenever you have a question!
The tools are:
- Business Case — Welcoming customers with disabilities
- Customer Service — How you can help
- The ADA and Your Business — An overview
- Physical Access — Doors, floors, and more
- New Construction — Building it right from the beginning
- Barrier Removal — Getting rid of problems
- Communicating Effectively with Customers — Making sure everyone gets the message
- Parking — Providing a spot for everyone
- Additional ADA Tips — The best of the rest
Special parts of this site are Situation Room scenarios that help you practice the information, What To Do mini-guides that summarize key points, and Deeper Dives for additional learning from recommended resources.
Topics for this toolkit were chosen based on common questions asked on the ADA National Network hotline from 2016–2021. To identify these questions, the Northeast ADA Center conducted the research study Examining Business and Employer Inquiries on ADA Title III: From 2016 to 2021.