Simply put, any company with 15 or more employees must have a website that allows access to people with disabilities, as per the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This means your website must be usable and content must be received by guests that use screen readers, that only use the keyboard to navigate, that can’t see certain sized fonts, or have issues with low-contrast type. For more detailed information, please go to: Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA | ADA.gov
Technically, if your company employs more than 14 people, yes. Your site legally should have accessibility features, and be specially altered to not be considered discriminatory.
Of course. An absence of knowledge of a law does not indemnify someone from it’s consequences. Every year, the number of court cases in the USA alone are rising exponentially. In 2020, there were almost 3,500 cases of website non-compliance! Can your company afford the monetary damage, let alone the social embarrassment of a discrimination case?
Absolutely not. There is a nominal fee for the assessment, then an hourly rate to manually implement descriptive content. This is completely based on the size of your site, and number of images and videos. Then, in order to utilize the Artificial Intelligence that keeps your site compliant moving forward, it’s just $50/month.
You can definitely just install an accessibility widget that will technically make your site “compliant”. This will save you the cost of manual programming. However, in 2022 15% of the companies sued for web discrimination HAD one of these widgets! They act as a one-size-fits-all bandaid, and their descriptions of images and videos are sometimes way off base. They don’t guarantee compliance. When our ADA Web Pros are working out the kinks of your site, we do so with human eyeballs and minds, and are able to specifically describe the media in a way that actually benefits your brand, and boosts SEO. For example: Imagine a website that sells eco-friendly oral care products. AI may describe a photo on their site as “Man in red shirt with blonde haired girl smiling next to toilet.” Accurate, maybe – but weird. Our Web Pros would describe this image: “Eco-friendly man crouches down next to his young daughter in their bathroom, smiling as he helps her put natural toothpaste on her new bamboo toothbrush.” Which one of these images would a blind guest connect with? Which one of these descriptions would a search engine also connect with?
Not only will millions more people be able to access your site content, which is AWESOME, but you will also keep yourself safe from being taken to court for discrimination. Not having an accessible site <i>is</i> illegal if your company employs 15 or more people. Another MAJOR bonus is how much more search engines will appreciate your newly upgraded website. Much more descriptive tags, headings, and pages will do wonders for your ranking!
We have 4 A’s:
No. You can be sued for discrimination (or anything else for that matter) even if you have all the accessibility in the world. It would just be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for the person accusing your company of website discrimination to win. We offer a compete litigation packet, should you find yourself looking at a suit. We will provide all the information necessary to prove your site is accessible, and passes Title III of the ADA. This would be provided to the courts by your company, showing full compliance – rendering the suit illegitimate. ADA Web Pros does not claim to give legal advice, and any inquiries about the law should be directed at your trusted attorney. We simply provide web accessibility services.