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ADA Compliance & Accessibility
In the present day, thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it is a requirement for all business websites to be accessible to individuals with disabilities.
The legislation forbids discrimination grounded in disability within entities categorized as “public accommodations,” encompassing both online platforms and physical establishments.
Individuals with disabilities, particularly those who are blind or visually impaired, have been pursuing legal action against businesses due to challenges in website accessibility, with a considerable number of them achieving success in their cases.
Or Skip To Next Steps...
1. Scan your site and get a report
2. Become ADA compliant
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Does My Website Need To Be Accessible (It's the Law)?
YES! It’s the law!
Do not fall victim to an ADA non-compliance lawsuit. In 2018, the DOJ clarified that websites are considered places of public accommodation and must comply with ADA Title III. In 2022, the DOJ reaffirmed it and recommended WCAG 2.1 AA as the best practice.
The ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act, an American civil rights law passed in 1990. The law prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places open to the general public. Since 2018, the ADA also covers websites, as they’re considered public places of accommodation. That is why making your website accessible is crucial for meeting ADA legal requirements.
It’s important to note that the ADA does not specify the criteria for a compliant website, yet today’s industry standard is to adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG).
The WCAG is a technical guidebook explaining how websites should look and operate for people with disabilities. So, by following the WCAG guidelines, you are making your website ADA-compliant.
Additional resources:
ADA
The ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act, an American civil rights law passed in 1990. It’s America’s most important law regarding accessibility and civil rights for people with disabilities. In 2018, the DOJ clarified that the ADA covers web accessibility.WCAG
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is a massive guidebook that explains how accessible websites should look and operate for people with disabilities. While it is not stated in the ADA, the WCAG has been widely accepted as the industry standard for being ADA-compliant.Web Accessibility Lawsuit Numbers and Trends In recent years, there has been a surge in state court lawsuits regarding web accessibility. 2023 saw a record-breaking number of lawsuits and demand letters under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), with 4,605 lawsuits filed. It is estimated that only 3% of demand letters go to trial, as the majority, approximately 97%, are settled beforehand. This indicates that over 100,000 business owners received demand letters in 2023 for failing to make their websites accessible. Moreover, organizations and businesses can be fined up to $150,000 for ADA violations, while the average ADA website lawsuit settlement typically ranges “from $20,000 to $50,000.”
How Do I Check My Website Compliance Status?
You can quickly and easily scan your domain for free using our ADA scan tool by clicking here.
Our ADA scan tool is a free audit tool that lets you check if a website is compliant. Simply enter your domain and click ‘Get Audit’.
Within seconds you will receive the website’s compliance status. You can then download the full report.
How Do I Make My Site ADA Compliant? (Our Web Accessibility Solution)
There are multiple free or low cost plugins available. However they only provide you with 10-15% of the accessibility you need in order to become compliant. These really aren't viable solutions.
Another option are manual accessibility services that do bring you up to full compliance. But they can cost $20,000 to $40,000 per website. They can also take several weeks or months to implement. The worst part of the manual accessibility services are the tedious and costly maintenance. Imagine spending all of that time and money. Then realizing that every time you want to make a change or revision to your site, you have to either spend thousands of dollars or sacrifice a significant amount of the accessibility that you worked so hard to attain.
Those options leave 99% of businesses without a feasible solution. This makes them easy targets for lawsuits and prevents them from helping people with disabilities.
The easiest, most cost effective solution is to use Guardian Insight Group's ADA solution. Guardian Insight Group can setup and install a simple to use, yet effective ADA compliance tool which uses AI-powered technology to provide a complete ADA solution for your site. Click here to find out more.
With exponential growth in web accessibility, legal actions have a widespread effect across industries, with small and medium businesses in the center.
Lawsuit numbers are estimated to continue to increase as the need to enable accessible digital experiences becomes more prominent.
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