Accessibility
Is your Website Handicap Accessible? Can someone with limited sight or hearing navigate your
website easily using modern accessibility standards?
If you have a large website and cant answer these question in the affirmative,
your business could be on the line to pay thousands and even millions of dollars in the growing
spectre of lawsuits for non-compliance with accessibility laws.
It all began in 2000, when Bank of America became the first entity to settle a web-accessibility lawsuit. Safeway Foods and the Charles Schwab Financial company were next. In 2008, Target paid $6 million to settle a class-action suit brought by the National Federation of the Blind, and about $4 million more to cover the plaintiffs’ attorney fees and other costs. More than 240 businesses across the country have been sued in federal court over website accessibility since 2015. Similar litigation has been brought against universities on the grounds that the free online courses they offer aren’t captioned for deaf users. Even ride-sharing services have been sued because their smartphone apps lack text-to-speech capability for blind users.
These companies and many more have been forced to pay millions because they did not spend a
few thousands to make their sites easier to navigate and understand by users with vision and hearing impairments.
It may sound daunting and new but it is very important to pay special attention to this issue if you have a website that serves a large number of users.
Here are a few things to consider for your website:
1. Are the sites color elements highly contrasted and the text easy to read against the background?
2. Are there captions for audio speech on the site?
3. Is text to speech enabled on your site?
Don’t know what any of this means or how to set them properly on your site?
Let us do a free assessment of your site and let you know exactly what you need to do.
We are fast and affordably priced experts at making websites handicap accessible.
Lets us walk you through the steps required and get you on your way to compliance today!