When people ask about making their website ADA compliant, what they’re really asking is how do I make sure I’m not sued over website accessibility.
While making your website conformant with the WCAG 2.1 AA technical standards for web accessibility is the correct and comprehensive answer, the more practical and direct answer is to fix the accessibility issues that plaintiffs’ lawyers are claiming in complaints.
Let’s examine two complaints filed in New York and Florida courts in August 2024.
1. Gottlieb & Associates Complaint – New York
I’ve included this first screenshot simply to make this real / tangible. This is an actual complaint filed in New York and it’s from just four days prior to me writing this blog post.
But now let’s look at the actual accessibility issues named:
- Lack of Alternative Text: Missing alt text descriptions for images.
- Empty Links: Links that contain no text.
- Redundant Links: Multiple links directing to the same URL.
- Broken Links: Links that no longer work.
- Duplicate Title Elements: Many pages with the same title.
And here’s the snippet for the claimed missing alternative text, again just so we can remove this from the abstract and make this real.
Missing alt text and alt text related issues are the single most commonly claimed issue in website accessibility lawsuits so make absolutely sure that you address the alternatives for your non-text content – especially images, first.
Gottlieb & Associates is a very active plaintiffs’ law firm in this space. They’ve already filed multiple complaints in August alone.
2. Mendez Law Offices Complaint – Florida
Now let’s look at a second complaint, filed in Florida, with a much more detailed and exhaustive list of issues with each issue tethered to a success criterion under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
Here are just some of the accessibility issues claimed:
- Violation 1.3.2 – Meaningful Sequence: Issues with navigating a GDPR modal.
- Violation 2.4.3 – Focus Order: Problems with the tab order on the site.
- Violation 1.4.3 – Contrast Minimum: Insufficient color contrast.
- Violation 2.2 – Pause, Stop, Hide: Issues with media controls.
- Violation 3.1 – Error Identification: Inadequate error messaging.
In this snippet, we can see the complaint is extremely specific when detailing the alleged accessibility issues:
If a Web page can be navigated sequentially and the navigation sequences affect meaning or operation, focusable components receive focus in an order that preserves meaning and operability.
When a user tries to navigate the site and close the GDPR popup modal that is displayed, the focus order cannot be navigated in a sequential order to preserve operability. The user is not able to operate or close the GDPR Modal.
Applicable WCAG 2.1 Standard at Issue:2.4.3 Focus Order (Level A)
URL Where Issue Was Encountered:
https://www.ihop.com/en/menu
Screen Capture Evidence
This complaint was filed by Mendez Law Offices along with Adams and Associates.
What’s the Point?
Okay, so we’ve gone over some accessibility issues from two different complaints – what are you supposed to take away from this?
For practical purposes, the issues being alleged in these complaints are representative of what making your website ADA compliant means.
Stated another way, it’s the plaintiffs’ law firms who are, in a sense, enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – or at least their interpretation of it. So if you want to prevent a website accessibility lawsuit, you need to fix the issues that the plaintiffs’ lawyers are looking for.
And the best evidence of what they’re looking for is publicly available: the complaints filed in court.
In this blog post, we’ve gone over just two single complaints filed by two of over 40 plaintiffs’ law firms who are active in this space.
So what you need to do is prioritize and immediately fix all of the issues that plaintiffs’ lawyers look for.
Taking Action
The good news is we’ve already researched literally hundreds of complaints filed by the most active law firms – and we’ve distilled all of the data along with the strategy you need into our ADA Compliance Course.
This course tells you exactly what accessibility issues to fix first, second, third, and so on. The course also tells you exactly how to find and fix each issue with code examples.
The course isn’t designed for perfection or WCAG 2.1 AA conformance, it’s designed for website owners to take immediate action.
What’s extra nice is the ADA Compliance Course functions as a set of step-by-step instructions that you can give your web developer.
And as your team implements the lessons and improves accessibility, you reduce incrementally reduce your risk of being sued.
You can learn more about the course at ADACompliance.net.
