Accessibility in a World Gone Wild

The business media has written many stories about whether remote work was a short-term necessity born out of COVID-19 or if it is here to stay. Some organizations have put an end to it entirely, while others have embraced remote work in its entirety. What's clear is that, although it isn't for every organization and in every context, people expect to be able to do what they have always done, but at a distance. Organizations must ensure the future is inclusive for those who have some sort of disability which would preclude them from participating either as an employee or as consumers. It is not only a moral imperative, it also makes good business sense.

Why Accessibility? 3 Honest-to-Goodness Reasons to Make Your Site Accessible Right Now

1. ACCESSIBLE WEBSITES HELP PEOPLE

Building websites that are accessible and usable by people with disabilities is just the right thing to do, especially in a time when casual Internet traffic is up nationwide. The pandemic released a torrent of online activity that never reverted to its former levels. Part of the reason is because many companies responded to the crisis by introducing new online features and services to help people make purchases and help businesses make sales, which people embraced as part of their normal lifestyles. These features and online services need to be accessible to people with disabilities.

2. ACCESSIBLE WEBSITES PROVIDE PROTECTION FROM LITIGATION*

During this COVID-19 dilemma, courts responded to the uncertainty by changing the way they operate. While that may slow down the pace of litigation, it is not clear whether it has slowed down the pace of threatening letters from attorneys, as many cases are settled out of court. There are decent reasons to suspect it could go either way. On one hand, discovering violations and sending demand letters can all be done from the comfort of home, at a time where a lot of people are working from home. On the other hand, sending demand letters during this time, attorneys and companies would know, lacks teeth without the ability to force the expense of an immediate meeting in court to litigate the matter. This latter point ought to drive us to be proactive, rather than complacent. Just because you haven't received a letter doesn't mean you won't.

Even companies with accessible websites are not immune from threats of accessibility lawsuits. However, in a world where there is a lot of low-hanging fruit for the picking, you insulate yourself by growing your fruit a bit higher on the tree, and pruning the branches closer to the ground.

3. ACCESSIBLE WEBSITES HELP YOUR BUSINESS GROW

Finally, our current circumstance is a perfect storm of complementary interests: First, people want to do business with companies that treat them with respect, regardless of their circumstance. Second, companies could use the revenue that might come from being inclusive of and welcoming to people with disabilities ­— an additional 42 million people — in the middle of a contracting economy, nationwide (2019 Annual Report on People with Disabilities in America. Institute of Disability, University of New Hampshire. 2019).

What is Accessibility?

The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) identifies four key principles for accessible content and interfaces. These principles are accompanied by certain requirements that must be followed to ensure people with disabilities can sufficiently access the site.

A common myth we've encountered is that these guidelines apply to only those who are blind — meaning only those who have to use screen readers to consume a webpage. This is not the case. These principles apply to several disability categories recognized by the W3C and other organizations that are concerned about these issues. They include:

• Visual impairment — Blindness, color-blindness, and poor vision
• Auditory impairment — Both deaf and those who are hard-of-hearing
• Motor impairment — Limited motor control that may lead to difficult or inability to use a computer mouse or to respond quickly
• Cognitive impairment — Problems with focus, memory, or learning

How Do You Ensure an Accessible Website?

One of the major challenges companies have is in understanding what to do, and it is in those cases that hiring outside help is crucial. Put simply, being "compliant" just means conforming to a standard. But what is the standard? While some have complained that the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) of 1990, passed long before the Internet was popularized, contains no useful, specific standards on how to build websites in a way that would be accommodating to people with disabilities, we have enough contemporary information to know what is expected, and what a company must do to build websites that are compliant the ADA's "public accommodations" requirements. Regardless of whether there is a statute commanding your company to comply with a standard like Section 508 or WCAG 2.2 AA (This new version of W3C's accessibility guidelines became official on October 5, 2023), these are, in fact, standards that can help you make your site more accessible and protect yourself from lawsuits.

The first step is to audit your website for compliance with one of these standards. A high-level, automated accessibility scan is fairly inexpensive. It can give you useful starting points for inspection and remediation, but these sorts of tests still need to be reviewed by humans at least, and ideally tested by people with disabilities.

Accessibility is—at its heart—a human enterprise. We use technical tools to help us be inclusive with our design, content, and tools. These automated scanning tools are good at uncovering the presence or absence of discrete, defined attributes that they've been told to uncover, but they are inconsistent in shades of gray. False negative results are about as common as false positive results. You need people to interpret the results and to find other areas of your site that may make it difficult for people with disabilities to use.

*Consult both legal and accessibility experts in this space who can help you maximize your website's reach and minimize your legal exposure.