Just because a website has accessibility issues does not necessarily mean that that website is inaccessible. And this is an extremely important distinction because many plaintiffs’ law firms root their claims in technical accessibility issues. But we need to determine whether a significant degradation and experience or outright barrier to access have been created. And … Read more
What happens over and over again is there’s a sense of urgency around digital accessibility after litigation has been initiated. And by then it’s too late, you’ve already suffered a significant loss. That doesn’t mean that you can’t go in the right direction after that. But you really want to prevent litigation altogether. But that’s … Read more
How can you tell if a website is ADA compliant? Well, the quick answer is you can’t. And the reason you can’t is because there is no law or regulation that explicitly states what you need to do to make a website ADA compliant. The Department of Justice, or DOJ, is the regulatory and enforcement … Read more
I was recently interviewed by Sanjay Sabarwal of Sabarwal Law and he has a YouTube channel. And the interview went really well and he asked a lot of questions that people want to know the answers to. And so some of the topics we talked about were: how much a compliant costs per website, … Read more
The ADA Compliance Course is a cheatsheet that website owners can give to their developers to make their websites more accessible and significantly reduce risk of litigation. This course is comprised of 15 lessons and within these lessons there are- an accessibility issue is identified and then there are instructions on how you find that … Read more
The terms VPAT and ACR are commonly used interchangeably but they are different. So the difference lies in that we use the VPAT to create the ACR. So a VPAT is a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, the operative word being template. We use this template and once it’s filled out, we have an Accessibility Conformance … Read more
Accessibility training is extremely important. Once you have your personnel – so your employees, your staff, your contractors – once you have them trained in accessibility, it’s going to dramatically lower your costs and then, two, it’s going to enable you to produce much more accessible digital experiences out-of-the-box. And this will come relatively quickly … Read more
California has been the most litigious state when it comes to “ADA website” litigation and small businesses have been hit especially hard. Among the most active law firms are Potter Handy, Pacific Trial Attorneys, Wilshire Law Firm, and Manning Law Firm. And there are literally dozens of other plaintiffs law firms that have engaged in … Read more
When it comes to website accessibility litigation, something that both clients and defense attorneys need to pay close attention to are the non-money terms of the settlement. So the focus is usually on the settlement amount and of course the clients and the defense attorneys are trying to get this down as much as possible. … Read more
Accessibility overlays do not make your website accessible. Also, they are discriminatory if you read through Title III of the ADA. So I will summarize two subsections now. Participation in Unequal Benefit: It shall be discriminatory to afford, on the basis of disability, and accommodation that is not equal to that afforded to other individuals. … Read more
Differentiating between website accessibility companies can be difficult so let’s run through a few of the categories. In one category we have the largest accessibility companies. We have Level Access, The Paciello Group, and we have Deque. And these are all legitimate providers. And at the core of their offering will be a manual audit … Read more
Behind me on the white board I have two watches drawn. And one watch is under street corner A and the other watch is under what is labeled street corner B. Now both watches are purported to be gold. Which one is better? They’re both fake. So that’s what it’s like when you’re debating whether … Read more
Squarespace has taken the wrong approach to accessibility. And their stance on accessibility can be condensed down into a single blog post that was coincidentally updated just two days ago on November 28th. And so I’m on this post right now and I’ll link to it in the description. And in the frequently asked questions … Read more
The other day I thought of the perfect term for website accessibility overlays and that is fugazi. So overlays amount to fugazi accessibility. And what does fugazi mean? Well it’s a slang term and it means a few different things. But, generally, it means something is fake or artificial or has no substance, it’s a … Read more
I really like what Wix is doing with their accessibility. They are doing what any website builder platform should do and improve the out-of-the-box accessibility of their website builder. What I found problematic was after I made the video I kept looking at Wix’s website and I discovered that they offered accessibility certification. And on … Read more
So how should we view the new release of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2? Well as of the date of this video we are not anywhere close to having the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 as a legal requirement. However, it’s obviously a best practice – if you can incorporate those additional … Read more
So how does WCAG 2.2 compare to previous versions? Well I’m going to look at conformance level AA and when we have 2.0, this is what I call the classic standard. 2.0 is what is published in 2008 and contains 38 different success criteria at conformance level AA. There are more success criteria but they’re … Read more
There will be notable updates to the ADA website compliance legal landscape in 2023. And one very important update is there will be less litigation. There has already been a decline in the second half of 2022 and I expect that to continue into 2023. And the reason why is because there have been adverse … Read more
I recently discovered that there is an entire marketplace on Fiverr for digital accessibility services. So there are audits being offered, remediation services are being offered, I even saw that VPAT- a VPAT service is being offered. And I wouldn’t use any of the gigs from Fiverr and so here is why. One, the majority … Read more
There are no instant solutions “solutions” for website accessibility. These are usually overlay widgets. There is no such thing as a widget that can make your website accessible. There are any number of reasons they fail, they don’t work, it’s a waste of money – don’t get one. You might be lured by promises of … Read more
Does the ADA apply to every website? Well this question, the answer to this question has multiple layers from different angles. So let’s start off with the law itself: the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990 and it did not contemplate modern digital technology such as websites and mobile apps. So … Read more
Conformance and compliance are often used interchangeably when referring to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines but that’s actually incorrect usage. So conformance refers to something that is voluntary. And this could be the standard or policy and this is from a non governing body and so conformance refers to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or … Read more
I had noticed that investor relations pages on websites we’re being targeted by plaintiffs’ lawyers, but I’d never thought about why they were specifically going after those pages – I just thought it was something that they had come up with to do. But I was talking to another attorney and they speculated that this … Read more
In a previous video I stated that website accessibility litigation would decline in 2023. And I touched upon a California State court decision but I didn’t explain it. So this California State court decision, the effect of it is that online only businesses can no longer be successfully sued in California whether it be state … Read more