Another way in which the federal government accessibility standards apply to private organizations is through Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. So let’s start with Section 508. Section 508 generally requires that federal agencies make sure their information communications technology are accessible. And so 508 also involves procurement and dealing with vendors and so vendors … Read more
Certification for ADA compliance as it relates to websites and digital assets is unavailable because there are no governing bodies or entities licensed by governing bodies that are able to issue that certification. So what we have to look to is a different type of certification and there are two primary ways to do this. … Read more
The difference between section 508 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act as it relates to private entities and website accessibility is that under Section 508 if- 508 deals with contractors or vendors and the procurement process. So under 508, if you are a vendor, they’re going to evaluate your product or service based on accessibility … Read more
$12,500 if I had to name one price for both an audit and remediation under WCAG 2.1 conformance level AA. Now what goes into this price quote? Well we first arere going to look at the type of digital asset. In this case it’s a website so then we’re going to look at the complexity … Read more
So you have a website you want to make sure that you’re “ADA compliant” and you want to make sure that anytime there are any accessibility issues that come up that you get an alert. That sounds fine but let’s start with this. So monitoring is going to be based on an automated scan and … Read more
As you’re initially remediating your digital assets for accessibility there is a significant cost associated with accessibility. And that is because you have to hire professionals to perform an audit and to remediate your website for accessibility. And that cost is there because you’re unfamiliar with accessibility and you have to outsource that manual work … Read more
Oftentimes we are reliant upon third-party integrations to offer features or abilities on our websites or mobile apps or whatever the digital asset is and we don’t have complete control over these third-party integrations. So in these scenarios we can only do so much customizations, right. Like we have access to settings, we can … Read more
One important distinction to make is that the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG are not the law. And they never are. They may be adopted or incorporated into the law but they are not the law itself. And specifically when it comes to the American Disabilities Act, compliance- the compliance standard is meaningful access, … Read more
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability – this is a federal law. The Unruh Civil Rights Act is a state law, the California State law that prohibits discrimination generally. And one of the demographics predict protected is people with disabilities. So you can’t discriminate against … Read more
A great way to reduce your risk – and this is something I recommend in The ADA Book – but a great starting point to reducing your risk of website accessibility litigation is to run a WAVE scan on all of the most important pages on your website. So whether that’s five or seven, maybe … Read more
There are plugins that can be helpful in making your website accessible. And some can even add benefit as options- having accessibility options available on your website, but they don’t make your website accessible or what many people are looking, for ADA compliant. Although we don’t know what ADA compliance exactly is when it comes … Read more
Many people ask to see examples of accessible websites. And the reason why examples aren’t relevant is because an accessible website can look like any other. You can go to Walmart.com, Target.com, many of these main all of these different retail websites are already accessible. There might be a few issues but for the most … Read more
Providers of digital products should have a VPAT for their product. And a VPAT maybe- it’s a term commonly used you may also hear of an ACR or Accessibility Conformance Report when but when people speak to V Pats in the private marketplace they’re referring to really a document that accounts for accessibility and if … Read more
The ADA Book is a great place to start when you are trying to understand ADA compliance and digital accessibility. What The ADA Book amounts to is it’s a succinct overview of the legal landscape complemented by information on practical implementation and approach. And really understanding the industry and the different terms that are used. … Read more
A checklist and guide for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which is best practice for ADA compliance for websites – a full checklist is available at Accessible.org. And I will put that link below and on this checklist you will see all 50 success criteria for WCAG 2.1 AA and they will be listed out … Read more
Some vendors use SEO as a secondary means of compelling someone to engage in accessibility. And while there is some marginal benefit your rankings you’re not going to automatically rank on page one on Google because you’ve made your website accessible, that’s not how it works. So yes, it you- you’ll get some SEO basics … Read more
I’m frequently contacted about website accessibility services – usually audits, but a lot of people also ask me about consulting and helping them accelerate their knowledge so that they can make informed decisions. And that’s really that’s a facet of the business I really like because I put a lot of general information out there … Read more
Wix has taken an updated approach to accessibility with their website builder and they’ve been proactive and so I’m on the wix.com/accessibility page and I’m going to go through it and provide my thoughts from a legal lens, in terms of is this helping with litigation and preventing demand letters and complaints being filed. And … Read more
Digital accessibility is actually fairly simple. I know it may seem confusing, but here’s what you need to know: you need to identify an asset that you need to make accessible. You need to get an audit for that asset and then you need to remediate that asset based on the issues found in the … Read more
Are VPATs for websites? My interpretation is that VPATs are traditionally not for websites. However, depending on the scope of the product or service, VPATs may include websites. So let’s go over this from the two primary sources: we have the Information Technology Industry Council who are actually the creators of the VPAT and on … Read more
I’m on containerstore.com and what’s important is the- there is a link at the very top, in small gray font, on the right labeled, “enable accessibility”. And so when you enable accessibility a more accessible version of the website is rendered. Now the website, the homepage as we’re on, it looks exactly the same, nothing … Read more
I am on ADA.gov and I am screen recording the post entitled, “Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA” and this was published by the Department of Justice, the DOJ. And the Department of Justice is very important on the topic of website accessibility because they are the federal agency that regulates and enforces Title … Read more
VPAT stands for Voluntary Product Accessibility Template and this is a template that vendors fill out and deliver to procurement officers as a part of the ACR or Accessibility Conformance Report. So we’ll get to that in a second, but a VPAT speaks to and represents a product or service’s accessibility. And so this is … Read more
100% of reputable accessibility professionals are against overlays for accessibility on a website. And when I speak of overlays I’m referring to the widgets that you could install on a website and that when clicked present an array of supposed accessibility options. They don’t work. They have never worked. The idea that they actually make … Read more