Should Companies be able to Sue Web Developers for Non ADA Compliant Websites?
Companies get fined by The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with government fines that start at $50,000.00 per an incident.
And while Building and launching a website can be expensive … fines and lawsuits can run you $100,000.00 or more, and you can get sued and fined over and over again until you fix the problem.
A couple big companies you might have herd of that have been fined and or sued are...
Netflix
In 2012, the National Association of the Deaf brought a lawsuit against streaming service Netflix for failing to provide adequate closed captioning on most of its “Watch Instantly” content.
Winn-Dixie
Five years after the Netflix case, Florida resident Juan Carlos Gil sued grocery store chain Winn-Dixie in what was deemed the first trial of its kind. The judge ruled that because Winn-Dixie’s website was so heavily integrated with its physical stores, it was subject to accessibility requirements outlined in the ADA.
Blue Apron
A 2017 ADA lawsuit against the meal kit service Blue Apron made a media splash precisely because it lacks a brick-and-mortar store. As such, this was another early ADA lawsuit highlighting the importance not just of physical accessibility but also digital accessibility.
Nike
Nike came under fire in 2017 because both websites it operates — Nike.com and Converse.com — were inaccessible to visually impaired users, a very common violation of Title III website accessibility guidelines.
Five Guys Burgers and Fries
Another company sued in 2017 over barriers to accessibility for blind and visually impaired users was Five Guys Burgers and Fries.
Amazon
The world’s top ecommerce service was sued as recently as 2018 over accessibility barriers to users who are blind or visually impaired.
Beyonce Knowles (Park Entertainment)
On January 3, 2019, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Beyonce Knowles’ company, Park Entertainment, because the website that sold concert tickets and other goods and services related to Beyonce’s music was missing several fundamentals of website accessibility.
Domino’s Pizza
In an ADA lawsuit settlement very similar to the ones brought against Nike and Beyonce’s company, a blind man named Guillermo Robles sued Domino’s Pizza in 2019 over violations of ADA Title III.
Burger King
Another major restaurant corporation sued over the inaccessibility of their website for visually impaired users is Burger King. In early 2018, the company was sued by a visually impaired woman who claimed she could not use the website without assistance.
Fox News Network
Fox News Network was the target of a class action lawsuit that resulted in a settlement in 2018. Many of the complaints in the Fox case were similar to those in other cases on this list, creating barriers for users with visual impairments.
And let’s not forget that not having an ADA compliant website means you're turning away millions of people with disabilities.
At the end of the day it’s the business owners that will be held responsible for not having an ADA compliant website. You’ve got tools you can use to make sure your website is compliant! It's important because there has been a steady increase in lawsuits and fines for non compliant websites.
Making sure your website is compliant is the business owners responsibility and plugins and overlays do not make a website compliant.
The extra code makes your website easier to hack, slower to load, and negatively affects the website visitors' experience and again … does not make it compliant. Overlays at their best can only fix about 25% of the problems and give a false sense of security.
Creating a good web experience means fixing the code, validating it, and making it ADA compliant.
Fines and lawsuits can run you $100,000.00 or more and you can get sued and fined over and over again until you fix the problems. And the entire time your losing leads.
In 2010, 8.1 million Americans were considered blind or unable to see, 7.6 million Americans had difficulty hearing, and 19.9 million people had difficulty lifting or gripping objects.
Overlays & Plugins Do NOT Make a Website ADA Compliant!
Since the business owner is solely responsible for making sure their website is ADA compliant, web designers will point their clients towards overlays and plugins, rather than to code the site correctly.
Just insert some code and you're done!
The Problem With Overlays & Plugins!
To start with the single most important thing when making a website visible is content and page speed. You spend a lot of money laying out and planning exactly how everything will be viewed. Now you're going to add code to your site and code slows a site down but in this case the slow down will be extreme because it's pulling information from another site.
Figure a second slow done will cost you about 4% in sales from what Amazon had said.
But in addition to that, the more code you have on your site the more likely some piece of that code could be used to hack your site.
Do accessibility overlays make a website compliant?
No!
To start with 75% of the things that need to be checked need to be done manually. Accessibility overlays can make sure that the pieces are in place but it can’t make sure that the content and information is set up correctly.
Like having a shopping cart with all the buttons saying “Buy Now” or alt text that doesn't correctly describe an image.
Most overlays I’ve seen don’t deal with color contrast issues. And at its best it can only fix about 25% of the problems on your site.
Overlays give a false sense of security.
An overlay gives the impression of fixing your site without actually fixing your site. You've still got bad code on your site but now it's hidden behind more options and more confusion.
You have no idea how the site will look after this tool finishes auto correcting everything. Accessibility overlays can create problems. The reason for the law is to give everyone equal access to your services and products.
However, since this code is on a third party site and needs some type of input from someone to be activated ... your already not being treated the same as the people who access the site without a disability.
And if someone does figure out how to activate your overlay, because it's not in the main code there is the question of how well it will navigate the site and make the changes.
Creating a good web experience means fixing the code, validating it, and making it ADA compliant.
Accessibility overlays hurt website performance. Plugins and overlays add friction to the user experience that wouldn't be there had the site been coded correctly. These plugins and overlays always create a bad user experience because they always slow a site down. Overlays are scripts hosted on third-party sites.
If their site is slow to load, off line or any number of problems you have no control over, it could cause your site not to work correctly.
And because website speed is a ranking factor it's going to affect your rankings, sales, and traffic. Google's test showed 53% of people will leave if your site takes longer than 3 seconds to load. You should also note that ad blockers sometimes block overlays.
Overlays do not fix accessibility issues.
Rebuild Your Website to Be ADA Compliant!
Building and launching a website can be expensive. A small website can cost you $10,000.00 or more. But fines and lawsuits can run you $100,000.00 or more and you can get sued over and over again until you fix the site.
Not having an ADA compliant website means you're turning away a lot of people.