How Does Web Accessibility Save Your Firm From Litigation?

In this era of technology, everyone should be able to access the internet, regardless of their disabilities. ADA for websites and web accessibility redemption vouches to make your website inclusive to everyone worldwide. Besides the obvious ethical obligations, an accessible website has various other benefits too!

For instance, web accessibility development for your website can actually save your law firm from litigation. How? Keep reading to find out!

What Are The Requirements For A Website To be Accessible?

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 is a comprehensive set of standards for making websites accessible for people with disabilities. It consists of 13 guidelines that can fall under four concepts:

Perceivability: The website should present information and parts of the user interface to users in a way they can understand.
The navigation and user interface components must be operational.
Understandability: The content and navigation of the user interface must be straightforward.
Robustness: The content has to be solid enough to be reliably interpreted by a wide range of user interfaces, including those using assistive technologies.

Legal Requirements Of Web Accessibility

Surprisingly, no new laws have passed in recent years regarding website accessibility. The increase in litigation is not the result of a shift in the legal landscape. However, the number of ADA lawsuits filed and won against major corporations in 2016 increased from a handful before 2017 to between one thousand and two thousand in 2018.

Corporations that were the targets of the investigation include big names like Fox News, Harvard, Nike, Burger King, and Domino’s Pizza, among others. The WCAG specifies two distinct kinds of case causes:

Federal legislation (Section 508 article): This law requires all government-run websites to meet WCAG 2.0 AA standards. This is not a concern for your company.
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act: This is federal legislation that requires all government agencies to take measures to eliminate disability-based discrimination.Given that the ADA is not specifically about the internet or how things should look online, there is no legally defined WCAG level within the ADA.

Since the “Section 508 article” referenced WCAG 2.0 AA, lawyers have begun using it in cases as the only criterion for determining whether or not a website is accessible to people with disabilities.

Possible Legal Consequences For Not Adhering To Web Accessibility

The risk of a lawsuit or demand letter increases if your website contains features restricting users with disabilities from utilizing them. Unfortunately, plaintiffs cannot seek monetary damages in federal cases brought under the ADA. Therefore, a plaintiff’s only options are to have their legal bills covered and make the inaccessible area accessible again.

So, what legal consequences can you face for not adhering to the web accessibility laws? Let’s take a look:

Lawsuits Regarding Web Accessibility Is On the Rise!

UsableNet has released its 2021 results report on virtual ADA cases in the US, and the trends it reveals are undoubtedly worth noting. First, in 2021, there were 15% more lawsuits than in the previous year.

About 10 cases were filed daily, for a total of a staggering 4,055 cases! The tally includes all federal and state cases that mention an ADA violation. Remember that the figures presented here account for lawsuits, not demand letters.

Notices Of Demand

UsableNet’s study does not include demand letters threatening legal action and asking for a quick settlement for defendant firms. However, it’s common knowledge that demand letters often exceed federal and state cases.

Although this strategy has been linked to “ambulance-chasing” by some, it is grounded in the law because all websites must be freely accessible to all users. In most cases, small and medium-sized enterprises receive demand letters with settlement amounts in the $5,000–$20,000 range. Of course, this cost does not include the cost of remediation.

Multiple Legal Actions

You can still be the target of another lawsuit or demand letter even if you have already been sued or received one. ADA lawsuits are common for many businesses. It’s not a rare sight for a company to face legal action from various parties concerning its website and mobile application.

Unfortunately, no matter how often you settle a lawsuit or demand letter, if your online properties remain inaccessible, you still risk receiving more. Moreover, settling exposes you more because you practically admit that your website is inaccessible. This is why we need to take steps to make all digital assets more accessible.

Conclusion

Web accessibility remediation opens opportunities for your firm’s growth and protects it from litigation fines. In this article, we clarify your confusion about web accessibility development for those confused about ADA for websites.

Consult an expert web accessibility company to protect your website against litigation and maintain your finances. Thanks for reading!

Working on a website can be difficult. Adding new media and updating pages is chore, even though you know your company website needs to evolve and become more accessible to the many users you are trying to reach. Maybe when you first built it, accessibility wasn’t even really discussed. But now you’ve taken a step back, looked at your customer base with a desire to include everyone and you’ve realized just how important it is to make your site accessible. However, the thought of building a robust site that can do all the things you want it to do is overwhelming.

What is Web Accessibility

A practice of designing and coding the website in order to provide complete compatibility in accessing it by people with disabilities. In addition, it is a way to improve search engine optimization only an ADA Compliant Web Designer will help you to make your website Compliant. Is your website compatible? By going through the checklist below, you can get the answer.

Assessing Current Web Pages and Content

The website must include a feature like a navigation link at the top of the page. These links have a bypass mechanism such as a “skip navigation” link. This feature directs screen readers to bypass the row of navigation links and start at the web page content. It is beneficial for people who use screen readers to avoid to listen to all the links each time they jump to a new page.
All the links should be understandable when taken out of the context. For example, images without alternative text and links without worded as “click here”.
All the graphics, maps, images, and other non-text content must provide text alternatives through the alt attribute, a hidden/visible long description.
All the documents posted on the website should available in HTML or another accessible text-based format. It is also applicable to other formats like Portable Document Format (PDF).
The online forms on the website should be structured so assistive technology can identify, describe and operate the controls and inputs. By doing this, people with disabilities can review and submit the forms.
If the website has online forms, the drop-down list should describe the information instead of displaying a response option. For instance, “Your Age” instead of “18-25”.
If the website has data charts and tables, they should be structured so that all data cells are associated with column and row identifiers.
All the video files on the website must have audio descriptions (if necessary). This is for the convenience of blind people or for having a visual impairment disability.
All the video files on the website must have synchronized captions. People with hearing problems or deaf can access these files conveniently.
All the audio files on the website should have synchronized captions to provide access to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
All web pages should be designed so that they can be viewed using visitors’ web browser and operating system settings for color and font.

About Website Accessibility Policy and Procedures

One must have a written policy on website accessibility.
The website accessibility policy must be posted on the website at a location where it can be easily found.
The procedure should be developed to ensure that content is not added to the website until it has been made accessible.
It should be confirmed that the website manager has checked the code and structure of all new web pages before they are posted.
While adding the PDFs to the website, these should be accessible. Also, the text-based versions of the documents should be accessible at the same time as PDF versions.
Make sure that the in-house and contractor staff has received the information about the website accessibility policy and procedure to confirm the website accessibility.
It should be confirmed that in-house and contractor staff has received appropriate training on how to ensure the accessibility of the website.
The website should have a specific written plan if it contains inaccessible content. Also, it should include timeframes in place to make all of the existing web content accessible.
A complete plan to improve website accessibility should be posted along with invited suggestions for improvement.
The homepage should include easily locatable information that includes contact details like telephone number and email address. This is useful for reporting website accessibility problems and requesting accessibility services with information.
A website should have procedures in place to assure a quick response to the visitors with disabilities who have difficulty in accessing information or services available on the website.
Feedback from people who use a variety of assistive technologies is helpful in ensuring website accessibility. So make sure to ask disability groups representing people to provide feedback on the accessibility of your website.
Testing the website using a product available on the internet is helpful, These tools are of free cost and check the accessibility of a website. They may not identify all accessibility issues and flag issues that are not accessibility problems. However, these are, nonetheless, a helpful way to improve website accessibility.

Checklist of Action Items for Improving the Accessibility of a Website

In addition, while considering the above suggestions, the following checklist initially prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for Federal Agencies provides further guidelines on ways to make websites more accessible for persons with disabilities.

This practical advice, as well as another checklist, are available at:

Satisfying all of these items does not necessarily mean that a website complies with ADA, but it will improve the website’s accessibility and decrease the risk of litigation. Again, an Expert or Web Accessibility Consulting & Services provider should be engaged to conduct a comprehensive review of your website.

Nothing brings you closer to reality than actually facing it. This is the premise of my latest attempt to spread awareness about Web Accessibility.

For better understand, here is a link in which a practical example is shown to make the websites’ user experience better by following the guidelines. Also, it tells the issues affecting various users on the internet with solutions.

You can make your website ADA compliant in an easy way by consulting the professionals, who can do this job effortlessly. Also, you can get a quick website audit from To Be ADA Compliant that offers complete web accessibility consulting & services in California, USA.

Resource: https://dev.to/chinchang/an-interactive-and-practical-introduction-to-web-accessibility-22o1