What do Beyonce, Domino’s Pizza and the Avanti Hotel have in common? They have all recently been targets for lawsuits over the ADA compliance of their websites. With the rise in eCommerce, eLearning, online reservations, job postings, and web banking, advocates for the disabled understandably argue that websites need to be as accessible as brick-and-mortar stores and schools are required to be. These types of accessibility lawsuits are initiated by people with varying disabilities who claim they were unable to use the websites because it was not ADA compliant.
Although the American with Disabilities Act itself does not mention websites (it was written in 1990, before the evolution of digital) the courts have determined that Title III of the ADA applies to websites. And ignorance of the mandates isn’t an acceptable excuse. In order for websites, online content and interfaces to be ADA compliant, they must be accessible.
It seems like this would be a pretty straightforward challenge to solve, but unfortunately, it’s more complicated than adding an accessibility statement to your legal disclaimers.