Legal Risks of Non-Compliance with ADA for Websites

As digital content continues to expand, ensuring your website is accessible to all users—including people with disabilities—is not just good practice; it’s a legal necessity. Failing to meet ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) standards can result in serious legal consequences, reputational damage, and lost business.

At ADA for Web, we help brands avoid risk by building and maintaining websites that meet WCAG and ADA compliance standards—through audits, consulting, and accessibility-first WordPress design.

Why ADA Compliance is Important

Under the ADA, businesses categorized as “public accommodations” must provide equal access—including on their websites. With more people relying on online platforms to shop, learn, and interact, accessibility is no longer optional—it’s required.

Non-compliance opens your business to lawsuits, fines, and the loss of customer trust. Many accessibility issues can be resolved early—before they escalate into legal disputes. Prioritizing compliance is the proactive (and smart) move.

Key Legal Risks of Non-Compliance

Lawsuits and Financial Penalties Non-compliance with the ADA can result in lawsuits filed against your business. In recent years, the number of ADA-related lawsuits concerning website accessibility has surged. Companies have faced significant fines, legal fees, and the cost of settlement agreements. Learn more about the growing trend of ADA lawsuits with our article, What Are Accessibility Lawsuits? Things You Need to Know.
Reputational Damage Lawsuits related to non-compliance can tarnish your brand’s reputation. Negative publicity surrounding accessibility issues can damage consumer trust and decrease business opportunities. For example, if customers feel that your website excludes them, they may turn to competitors who offer a more accessible experience.
Loss of Customers and Market Reach If your website is inaccessible, you’re essentially excluding millions of potential customers who have disabilities. The market of individuals with disabilities is vast, and by failing to provide accessibility, you miss out on a large portion of the population. By ensuring your website is ADA-compliant, you can reach a broader audience and expand your market segment.
Legal Costs and Ongoing Compliance Expenses In addition to the costs associated with lawsuits, ongoing compliance can incur significant costs. These may include website updates, regular accessibility audits, and staff training. However, these costs are much lower than the potential legal fees and fines resulting from non-compliance.

Steps to Minimize Legal Risks

Perform Regular Accessibility Audits Conducting regular audits helps you identify potential issues before they turn into legal problems. Use automated tools like Compliance Checker and conduct manual tests to ensure your website meets ADA guidelines.

Need an audit? Book a site review.

Educate Your Team Make sure your website development team understands ADA compliance requirements and stays updated on changes in accessibility standards. Training your staff can prevent mistakes and ensure ongoing compliance.
Consult with an ADA Specialist If you’re unsure about your website’s accessibility, consider hiring a specialized consultant. An expert can assess your website and guide you in implementing the necessary changes to meet ADA standards.
Stay Informed on Legal Precedents Keep up with legal developments related to ADA compliance and web accessibility. For example, the ADA Compliance Checklist is a great resource for businesses looking to ensure that their website meets the standards.

Conclusion

ADA compliance isn’t just about avoiding lawsuits—it’s about creating a digital space that reflects your brand’s values of inclusivity and access for all. Taking the right steps now protects your business legally and helps you build trust with a wider audience.

Want to make sure your website is safe, compliant, and user-friendly?
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For more information on avoiding legal risks, check out these useful resources:

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