Reduce your website liability exposure and gain market share. Win-win.
There are two reasons to make your website accessible to people with disabilities: liability exposure and market share. Lawsuits against companies who don’t have accessible websites have increased by 3,600% since 2015. That’s not a typo.
This increase in litigation makes perfect sense when you think about it. The business we conduct—both personal and professional—increasingly takes place online. Brick and mortar businesses are folding as online businesses reign supreme.
Anyone anywhere can do anything online … unless you are a person with a disability, and websites aren’t accessible.
How would you pay bills, schedule appointments, order dinner, shop, check the weather, and a number of other things if the websites you rely on don’t work for you?
With an estimated 59 million people with disabilities in the United States alone, an increase in litigation is understandable. The court system is designed, in part to award damages. But it is also designed to change behavior.
With such a large number of people needing access to websites, and the snail’s pace at which businesses are accommodating that need, litigation is a way to speed up adoption of accessibility technology.
The message is: if you don’t want the expense of litigation, you would be wise to make your website accessible.
An accessible website:
1. Reduces your risk of website legal action and protects your business and assets and
2. Increases your market to include the 59 million persons with disabilities in the United States who struggle with online usage.
More About the Law
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) essentially requires that private businesses provide access to all.
When the ADA was passed in 1990, this meant installing ramps to make your business accessible to people in wheelchairs, or having bathroom doors wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair, or having menus in braille.
In fact, at the time the ADA was passed, the internet hadn’t even gone “live to the world.” Understandably, the law was focused on brick and mortar businesses.
Now, however, almost every business conducts some or all of its business online.
Because of this, website accessibility lawsuits have required courts to decide if the ADA applies to business conducted on the internet as well as in a physical establishment. And, as these cases have been litigated, courts have decided them differently.
Some courts have decided that ADA Title III requires website accessibility only if the business also has a brick and mortar store. While other courts have decided that all websites have to comply with ADA Title III and make their websites accessible to people with disabilities period.
Regardless of the difference in court opinions, there are two other important legalities that make accessibility the smart choice:
- The Department of Justice (the government agency with ADA regulatory and enforcement authority) has consistently maintained its position that Title III applies to websites.
- Healthcare companies are at particular risk if their websites aren’t accessible to people with disabilities because of Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Section 1557 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. It applies to (a) any health program or activity that receives funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and (b) health insurance marketplaces and all plans offered by issuers that participate in those marketplaces.
As it relates to website accessibility, it means that every component of health programs and activities should be accessible to people with disabilities.
For example, information about health and wellness or a healthcare organization’s services, patient-care videos, an online billing system, or an online appointment scheduling system.
More About Litigation
The increase in litigation has been gradual since the ADA was enacted in 1990, but the recent increase in lawsuits against businesses for non-accessible websites is staggering. According to data from a leading law firm:
- 60 website accessibility lawsuits were filed in federal court in 2015.
- By 2017, that number had increased to 814.
- In 2018, there were 2,258 website accessibility lawsuits filed in federal courts.
That’s a 3600% increase in only 4 years. (… not including state court filings)
You may have read about some of this litigation in the headlines. Large companies like Target and Netflix have been sued, costing them millions of dollars. Recently, Winn-Dixie, a major grocery chain in the southeast, made the headlines for lack of website accessibility.
You may think that your risk of being sued is small because you are a small business. If you do, I beg to differ. Lawsuits against small businesses rarely make the news. But that doesn’t mean they are insignificant … particularly if you are the one that is sued. Consider this, if you will:
- In the three months of June, July and August 2018
- In only two of fifty states, namely Florida and New York
- In one single industry, namely healthcare
There were 30 ADA website accessibility lawsuits filed against healthcare businesses.
These businesses included radiology clinics, senior care centers, dental offices, pediatric offices, small hospitals, diagnostic centers, urgent care clinics and more.
The outcomes of these cases are unknown because most are still in litigation. A couple of them have been settled on a confidential basis. Regardless, you can bet it cost a pretty penny.
Even prior to this, in 2017, there was an uptick in the threat of litigation against Texas dentists, who received demand letters from an attorney alleging that their websites violated the ADA for lack of accessibility.
This prompted the American Dental Association— the other ADA—to send an email to its membership with an accessibility guidance document.
So How Do You Make Your Website Accessible?
Many people are under the misunderstanding that people with disabilities have special tools that enable them to navigate the web. Well, they do. The problem is that if your website isn’t accessible, those tools don’t work.
There are several technical requirements to make a website accessible. Generally, a website is accessible if:
- written content is coded for audio translation by vision-impaired users who depend on screen-reader software,
- videos include descriptions for the deaf and on-screen captions for the blind, and
- all interactive functions are operable through keyboard commands for people who can’t use a mouse…
- in addition to other disabilities such as color blindness and cognitive disabilities that need to be accounted for.
Most web developers don’t include website accessibility because it is not a matter of a simple plug-in. It is technically complicated.
It not only requires making your site accessible, but continuous monitoring to make sure the site stays compliant – not to mention staying up-to-date on ever-changing regulations and technical improvements.
For that reason, it is best to work with a company that specializes in web accessibility. Fortunately, one of my clients, Accessly Inc, does just that.
Because I like to practice what I preach, I am currently in the process of having my site made accessible. I will report back in four short weeks. To me, having a website that is accessible to all is a smart business strategy. And, it’s just the right thing to do.
Remember …
An accessible website:
1. Reduces your risk of website legal action and protects your business and assets and
2. Increases your target market to the 59 million persons with disabilities in the United States who struggle with online usage.
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