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How to Make Your Website ADA Compliant and Avoid Accessibility Lawsuits

Web Accessibility Sacramento

Web accessibility is the inclusive practice of ensuring there are no barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites on the World Wide Web by people with physical disabilities, situational disabilities, and socio-economic restrictions on bandwidth and speed.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) defines web accessibility as “the ability for people with disabilities to perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and to contribute to the Web.”

There are many different types of disabilities that can affect a person’s ability to use the web. Some of the most common disabilities include:

  • Visual impairments
  • Hearing impairments
  • Cognitive impairments
  • Mobility impairments
  • Learning disabilities

Web accessibility can be achieved by following a set of guidelines and best practices. These guidelines and best practices are developed by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

The WAI has developed a number of resources to help web developers make their websites more accessible. These resources include:

  • The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
  • The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG)
  • The User Interface Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG)

The WCAG are a set of international standards that define how to make web content more accessible. The ATAG are a set of guidelines for developing authoring tools that can be used to create accessible web content. The UAAG are a set of guidelines for developing user interfaces that can be used to access accessible web content.

By following the WCAG, ATAG, and UAAG, web developers can make their websites more accessible to people with disabilities. This can help to ensure that everyone has equal access to the information and services available on the web.

Here are some of the benefits of web accessibility:

  • It makes the web more inclusive for everyone, regardless of disability.
  • It can help to improve the user experience for everyone.
  • It can help to increase website traffic and engagement.
  • It can help to improve search engine ranking.
  • It can help to avoid legal liability.

Recently, many lawsuits have targeted SMBs on behalf of consumers with disabilities who are unable to fully access their websites.

In fact, small businesses have found themselves sued at an unprecedented rate in the last several years. And this often happened over websites that were inaccessible. In the U.S., the number of federal website accessibility lawsuits reached 2.2K in 2018. That works out to a 177% increase over 2017.

You own a small to medium sized business (SMB). And remember some of your potential customers are people with disabilities.

Lawsuits sometimes turn out to be questionable or even unscrupulous in nature. And here the onus falls on lawyers who specialize in this type of lawsuit and not on people with disabilities. So it pays for SMBs to be aware of the compliance issues they may encounter.

That way businesses can proactively arm themselves with convenient and cost-effective ways to address problems with accessibility before lawsuits happen.

What Issues do Small Businesses Face in Making Their Websites Compliant?

Small businesses often tend to have websites that need an overhaul before they can be made accessible.

web accessibility

Many smaller businesses haven’t updated their websites for years. These older sites often contain an overload of images, videos and flashing gifs—especially dangerous to consumers with epilepsy—that can make them expensive and time-consuming to update.

Websites can also be difficult for SMBs to keep updated because:

  • They are dynamic and new content is generated every day. The tiniest change can break the code and make the website inaccessible.
  • Compliance regulations change and adjust so often that it can be especially challenging for small businesses to keep up with these changes.

One example of a small business stretched to the limit by lawsuits is the Avanti Hotel in Palm Springs, CA. In order to avoid further lawsuits, small businesses like the Avanti—which faced up to 25K in damages and fees—had to resort to using plain type on some pages of their website until they were able to upgrade because ‘no access is equal access’ according to the ADA.

How Small Businesses Can Cope

So what can small businesses do to keep ahead of shifting regulations without breaking the bank?

Web accessibility companies like accessiBe hold the key to making website accessibility convenient and affordable for businesses. The size of these businesses makes no difference. These artificial intelligence (AI) solution offer an automated solution to making websites accessible.

All businesses have to do is install a single line of JavaScript code. After installation, the AI starts scanning and analyzing websites. The AI then begins the job of scanning accessibility issues and fixing them. For example:

  • Structural elements: These determine what happens when users click on a header or topic—they help users navigate a website.
  • Button functionalities: These determine what happens when a user clicks on a button.
  • Object hierarchies: The framework within which the content is displayed so that the user can navigate the site.

After only 48 hours of beginning to scan for this information, the AI has determined the level of significance of each of these components within the context of your website. It then comes up with the best possible accessibility solutions to make the site compliant with ADA, WCAG 2.1 and EU accessibility regulations.

Additionally, machine learning technology keeps gathering information from every website it’s installed on. This means that the AI continually ups its game, becoming more and more accurate and evolving with changes to regulations and your website.

So no need to constantly check to make sure that changes and updates are happening as they should.

AI is an Easier Solution for Large Corporations and SMBs Alike

AI-powered technology allows over 2500 SMBs to quickly and almost effortlessly make their websites compliant. And this technology also helps bigger companies like HStern, Burger King and BMW too. As a result, upgrades can cost hundreds instead of the several thousands to millions of dollars. Of course, this depends on how complex a site is.

Businesses can feel good about making their sites accessible to people with disabilities. And they can do it affordably. But they also protect their businesses from expensive lawsuits in the process. This turns out to be important. Because accessibility lawsuits can often drive SMBs out of business due to expense.

If you are ready to purchase, subscribe, and upgrade your website so that it is ADA & WCAG Compliant with the disabilities act. Please subscribe Here!

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