Do I Need to Make My Website Accessible
to People with Disabilities?

Yes. Various federal, state and local statutes apply to businesses that provide public goods and services.

According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), websites are considered “places of public accommodation” nowadays. Thus, they are covered by the American Disabilities Act (ADA).

If you are worried about the cost of upgrading your website for ADA compliance, there is a tax credit to offset these expenses. You can read IRS SECTION 44, which provides up to $5,000 in IRS tax credits for websites to be remediated or upgraded for ADA compliance. Share this information with your accountant if you have any questions about getting this credit and deduction.

Society and the government want all businesses and organizations to play an active role in online accessibility; these incentives are just one way they’re helping make our digital world more accessible than ever before.

Who Does My Website Need to Be Accessible For?

Your website needs to be accessible for users with disabilities, including but not limited to:

• Deafness

• Blindness

• Photosensitivity

• Hearing loss

• Low vision

• Learning disabilities

• Cognitive limitations

• Limited movement

• Speech disabilities

• Dexterity

Suppose visitors to your website are blind and low vision users, people with learning difficulties, hearing, dexterity, unable to read, or cognitive impairments such as Down’s Syndrome. In that case, they MUST be able to access your content.
To be considered accessible, you must remove any barriers that prevent these groups from interacting correctly on the page by using assistive technologies like screen readers, which read aloud what’s written on a web page.
By making your website truly accessible, you:

• Mitigate your legal risk of “surf-by” lawsuits

• Enhance your user experience

• Broaden your website reach with enhanced search

• It’s a good business practice, and it’s the right thing to do

Who Needs to Follow ADA Requirements?

Countries worldwide, such as the UK, Australia, Canada, and others, are mandating website accessibility. ADA standards apply to commercial and public entities in the United States, “PLACES OF PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION” UNDER TITLE 3.

In Short, the Law Impacts:

• Americans with disabilities, their friends, family, and caregivers

• Private employers with 15 or more employees

• Businesses operating for public benefit

• State and local government agencies

While every business should ensure ADA compliance, our services are especially helpful for:

• E-commerce websites, Shopify stores, WordPress/Woo-Commerce, etc.

• Service-based businesses with brick-mortar operations

• Organizations

• Government websites

Contact us today to ensure your website complies with the ADA, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), Section 508, and EN 301549 standards.

Lawsuits related to ADA Website compliance are on the rise.

In 2021, Over 4000 ADA Lawsuits were filed against inaccessible websites, according to -UsableNet. That’s more than ten a day!

A handful of law firms are serial lawsuit filers who sue

According to various statistics, over 74% of ADA Website lawsuits are aimed at e-commerce sites and businesses with a retail presence.

• Approximately 15% of these websites were sued in the past and made settlements, were sued AGAIN by different plaintiffs due to underlying accessibility issues not being remediated or new issues/upgrades resulting in new accessibility issues that were neglected

• There was one plaintiff recently who sued over 175 businesses. Another sued over 99. These are considered “surf-by” lawsuits. And yes, it’s legal and very profitable.

• Installing an accessibility widget or overlay app is not enough. Over 400 websites have been sued recently for ADA non-compliance even though they have such apps on their websites. Many plaintiffs firms are targeting sites that rely solely on AI-assisted widgets and tools without fixing the problem. It is like applying a band-aid without treating the wound. You must improve your underlying code to have a truly accessible website.

  Don’t let your website become another target for ADA law firms who will file a federal lawsuit against your business. You may ask why so many lawsuits are frivolous, boilerplate, and cut-paste, with the same plaintiffs and plaintiff firms suing businesses in the hundreds each month.

  The reason for this is simple. It’s a big profitable business for plaintiff’s firms.

  ADA allows plaintiffs to recover LEGAL FEES from defendants, fees – which can be in the six figures, while defendants CANNOT recover their legal costs if they win.

  Read that again. If they win, you pay their legal fees. If you win, they do not pay your legal fees.

  So it is a You Lose, I Win scenario. This stacks the deck in favor of Plaintiff firms and against the defendants.

If you get Sued:

• You may need a drink. Then

• You will have to fix your website anyway

• Pay your attorney’s fees

• Defend your case – if you lose, you owe their attorney’s fees plus fines

• Make a settlement if advisable – five to six figures

• Follow the ongoing process for compliance

• Periodic audits as per judgment or settlement

• Avoid copy-cat lawsuits

ADA lawsuits are painful experiences that distract you from your business. Talk to anyone who has been sued out of the blue, and you will realize how painful and frustrating it can be when you get the court notice.

Simply put, if your website is not fully compliant, you need to fix your website as of yesterday. Prevention is better than cure and certainly less costly than lawyers and courts!

Benefits of Accessible Website,
App and Digital Content

Up to $5000 ADA Tax Credit

The government gives small to mid-size businesses up to $5000 back via the ADA tax credit and deduction in a taxable year. This is a no-brainer. Take advantage of this tax benefit if you want access for everyone. https://www.ada.gov/taxcred.htm

It’s The Law

Website owners, developers, and designers must understand accessibility and follow steps to be ADA compliant when building their themes, documents, PDFs, videos, apps, and other content.

Avoid Lawsuits

The best way to avoid or reduce the possibility of ADA accessibility lawsuits is to make your website WCAG 2.0 Level II compliant.

Inclusive User Experience is Good for Business

Provide an excellent experience for your visitors with assistive technology for those who require it.

Better Search Results and Conversion

Fixing structural issues in the website theme and code will undoubtedly help improve your webpage’s search engine results when Google bots recrawl and index the website with structured information for the best page experience for users and visitors.

How ADA Consultants Make Your Website Accessible and Compliant

01: Contact Us

Fill out our free audit and consultation form

02: Website Accessibility Audit

We conduct a Full Accessibility Audit of Your Website

ADA Consultants conduct a three-factor audit that combines automated, manual, and assistive technology findings into one comprehensive review.

Automated audit technology can only detect approximately 30% of WCAG issues. Arktop manually reviews pages and content to catch the other 70%.

Our thorough manual ADA compliance audit reviews the critical errors, alerts, color contrast, media, captioning, ARIA, page flow, and other requirements to ensure your website is fully accessible for people with disabilities.

• Identify and explain WCAG issues failures

• Identify accessibility barriers and eliminate auto-scan false results

• Create an in-depth audit report and checklist for remediation and repair

03: Accessibility Repair

• Upon booking our services, we prepare and implement the full remediation process of code checking, manual fixes, and 3rd party app errors.

• Check and fix color contrast errors. If colors need to be changed, we consult with you on options for approval.

• Set up Alt-Text auto-scheduler app installed for the product, collection, and home page images.

• Review of video content for captions or set up disclaimers.

04: Launch Revised Website Theme/Code

We work on a backup theme to remediate your website code. Once the cleaned-up website code/theme is ready, we will review it and launch it for your approval.

05: Website Training

Websites are like living, breathing organisms. They change and evolve as new content is added and upgrades are made. We empower your team with the knowledge to design, build and master web accessibility.

Our Training Includes:

• Help them understand what ADA and accessibility is

• ARIA & Style training and explanation

• Basic guidance to your development team to follow instructions in future

We provide you with basic training on how to audit your website monthly or quarterly and show you the tools you need. We also offer a service for such monitoring and fixes if you have a more extensive site with a lot of updated content.

06: User Testing

Our team of testers is a mix of people with certain disabilities and those who have been trained on the best practices of accessibility, equitable use, and universal design.

Once remediation work is complete or if there are questions on certain functionalities, our team of testers independently reviews websites for accessibility, equitable use, UI/UX. Their recommendations are incorporated into the remediation process and final website conformance review and audit.

07: Accessibility Statement

Your website should contain a proper Accessibility Statement in the footer navigation.
We will provide you with a lawyer-drafted Accessibility Statement template to use on your website.

Our ADA Website Consultant team will share some tips and processes that will improve your website’s accessibility and decrease the chances of litigation.