In our June issue, we talked to web accessibility experts about the importance of making your website easy to navigate for everyone, including those with visual impairments. Making sure that everybody can access and fully use your site is necessary from an inclusivity standpoint and it’s also essential for your SEO.
We already learned about ways retailers can improve their website accessibility and how good it is for business — but what’s the law? Read on for more on the legal aspects of online accessibility and ways to mitigate risk of lawsuit.
The Law
When it comes to the laws surrounding web accessibility, things are a little muddled. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) governs the accessibility of spaces, which has traditionally been interpreted to mean physical spaces. While the ADA does not yet explicitly state that online spaces must be accessible, businesses are still vulnerable to ADA discrimination lawsuits.
Some of these lawsuits have been successful already, and an increasing number of businesses are facing litigation over their online accessibility. Retailers like Grubhub, Target, Amazon, Ticketmaster and Hobby Lobby have faced legal action.
For the past several years, the Department of Justice has been considering a proposal to amend ADA regulations to include digital accessibility. Since there’s no clear language in the ADA right now, lawsuits over the issue are currently handled in the courts.
Marla Runyan, Director of Digital Accessibility of Perkins Access at the Perkins School for the Blind says it’s important for retailers to understand the risk involved with having an inaccessible website.
“If you have an inaccessible website, you’re at risk for lawsuit and you will go to court and then the court will decide if this is in violation of the ADA based on discrimination,” she said. “In the long run, if we do get the language in the ADA the way we hope, it’s better for everybody because it’s very clear as to what your responsibilities are.”
The cost of potential litigation, which can be in the millions when you consider the legal fees, fines and settlements, is much higher than the cost of making your site accessible. So what steps should you take?
What You Can Do
If you want to determine if you might be at risk for a lawsuit, first make sure that you are meeting the requirements laid out by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). WCAG is considered the international standard for web accessibility and outlines criteria in technical detail. These guidelines touch on everything from your overall site structure to how you post content and the level of contrast on web pages.
While some changes to your web presence will require the expertise of a web developer with coding skills, there are some steps you can take right away to mitigate risk. One fairly simple and important step is writing good alternative text, which is a short description you write on the back end to accompany each image on your site. Since people with visual impairments often rely on screen readers to read them content, alt-text is what tells them what an image is.
Writing solid alt-text will also help your SEO, since Google uses it to better understand your content. For more on this and other steps you can take to improve your online accessibility, be sure to check out our June issue article.
While navigating the dos and don’ts of web accessibility can be tricky, it’s worth it to make your business more inclusive for everyone.
