by Kris Rivenburgh, founder
In 2017, I happened upon a news headline that someone had been sued because their website wasn’t ADA compliant. The write-up was interesting; I had never even considered the idea of making a website ADA compliant.
But after I read the article, I moved on to the next thing and that was the end of my ADA compliance reading.
Until I noticed another company get sued.
And then another.
And another.
As the lawsuits started to stack up, I thought, I really need to find out what’s going on here.
So I researched for days. I read all sorts of blog posts and articles written by law firms, accessibility companies, and marketing providers. I also watched YouTube videos explaining compliance and accessibility.
But I was still confused.
No one was clearly explaining the subject matter. No one was saying, “Here’s exactly what the situation is and here’s exactly what you need to do.”
The more I read, the more I realized that either nobody understood what was going on or they couldn’t explain it in easy to understand terms.
The truth was, I didn’t have all of the answers myself, but I had read enough to know that I understood it better than anyone else who was writing the guides.
And with that, I opened up a Medium column and wrote my first ADA compliance article, now titled, ADA Compliance for Websites in Plain English. It was an instant hit. For two years, it ranked #1 on Google for “ADA website compliance.”
I received so many nice emails and messages as a result.
A comment from Christine Zito on the article was representative of the positive feedback:
Kris, THANK YOU for making this easy to understand. I’m a website designer and learning all this has been quite the journey. Scary at times. But the more I learn the more the fear dissipates. It’s funny how some will really thrive on people’s fear. In all reality what I’m doing is making my website accessible and here is how you do it, you know?
I’m writing a blog and I’m referencing you, is that okay?
Again, thank you so much … actually, thank you for caring,
Christine 🙂
Ranking #1 in Google was great because it brought attention, but the key was what Christine wrote in the first line: I made ADA compliance for websites easy to understand.
And that sentiment has been the foundation of everything I’ve done ever since: making accessibility and compliance as simple and as easy as possible.
Seven months after publishing the Medium article, I purchased the Accessible.org domain name and began my push to make accessibility and ADA compliance accessible to everyone.
One resource I spent a lot of time on was my WCAG guide. Originally my WCAG guides were behind an email subscription, but I decided that I didn’t want to go that route. If somebody was looking for help with WCAG, I wanted them to have free access to my information; I really liked the idea of thousands of people around the world using my resources to level up their game.
Again, the vision has always been the same: let’s make this as easy as possible.
That carries forward to present day. With the help of world-class technical accessibility experts, Accessible.org now provides excellent quality accessibility services to all types of organizations all across the world.
And we help with compliance for all types of digital accessibility laws and regulations: the European Accessibility Act (EAA), Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, the new ADA Title II Web Rule, Colorado’s HB21-1110, and so on.
We know this space inside and out, and as a result our clients receive the most straightforward recommendations, service, and products that directly help them reach their objectives.
If we can help you, you’re always welcome to contact me at kris@accessible.org.
P.S. You can also read more about me, Kris Rivenburgh, and my approach to business.
P.P.S. If you’d really like to understand this space, I highly, highly recommend my book, Digital Accessibility and Compliance.
