What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You:
ADA Compliance
Digital accessibility isn’t brand new but it’s not your fault you haven’t heard much about it until recently. Public awareness is just now becoming mainstream and lawsuits have been going on.
There are international standards for digital accessibility for business websites, They are set by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and are known as WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
The U.S. government sets their own requirements for digital accessibility with what’s known as Section 508. Section 508 is the standard for government agencies, non-profits and federal contractors. The State of California passed AB 434, a mandate in 2017, for state agencies websites to become compliant with WCAG 2.0 AA.
Failing to meet WCAG guidelines could expose you to lawsuits.
What’s Been Going on and What Happened in 2019?
In 2017 east coast courts ruled that “business websites failing to meet WCAG guidelines can violate Title III of the ADA, opening the door for litigants to bring an onslaught of claims”. “In 2018, the number of federally-filed website accessibility cases skyrocketed to 2,285, up from 815 in the year prior. In the first half of 2019, these cases have increased 51.7% over the prior year’s comparable six-month period, with total filings for 2019 on pace to break last year’s record by reaching over 3,200.” (Read entire article)
What Do I Need to Do?
As a business owner you want to make sure your website meets WCAG guidelines. To identify and achieve this you need to do the following:
- An Entire Website Accessibility Scan
- Accessibility Failure Reporting
- Failure Correction
- Recommended Recurring Scans
I Don’t Know How to Do This. What Should I Do?
Fill out the form located at the top left of this page. Read and follow the instructions after submitting the form.