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WCAG stands for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. They are the most important guidelines for web accessibility policy and set the standard for web accessibility legislation in most countries around the world.
To really understand why the WCAG matters so much, you need to know who is behind them. The WCAG was created by the World Wide Web Consortium, known as the W3C. The W3C was founded in October 1994 in the halls of MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS), when global web activity started soaring. Founding members included top scientists, and by late 2019, the organization has over 440 members including leaders from business, nonprofit organizations, universities, government entities, and relevant industries.
W3C’s originally focused on standardizing web protocols so that websites and web tools would be compatible with each other. Every W3C standard is reviewed several times, tested, and analyzed before it’s approved by members. Usually, W3C standards have 3 levels of compliance, from A to AAA.
Web accessibility was one of the earliest issues that W3C addressed. The first WCAG was published in 1999, but it was revised in 2008 as WCAG 2.0 and updated again in 2018 in the form we use today.
Your road to accessibility compliance starts with RelayAccess. We empowered our clients with great quality services and training. We are your partner to achieve accessibility compliance.
Ensuring access to information is a key component of the ADA, and it is critical for every business and organization to make it available, including yours.
As experts in website development and compliance shortfalls, RelayAccess is committed to helping you build the most accessible site possible while meeting or exceeding legal requirements. From initial audit to completion, RelayAccess focuses on identifying any issues with your site and fixing them, giving you peace of mind that your site is compliant and allowing you to focus your time on growing your business instead.
What does the ADA cover?
ADA is a very broad and wide-ranging piece of legislation that covers a lot of different aspects of accessibility for people with disabilities. The part of the ADA that affects the way that businesses serve customers is called “Title III,” so you’ll hear accessibility legislation referred to “ADA Title III”
ADA Title III covers public areas, like schooling and transportation, and “public accommodations.” “Public accommodations” is a legal phrase that includes businesses, restaurants, hotels, theaters, doctors' offices, pharmacies, retail stores, museums, libraries, parks, daycare centers, and almost every place of work.
ADA requirements are twofold.
18 years after President Bush signed the original 1990 bill, his son, President George W. Bush signed major changes to the ADA into law.
The most important change involved the definition of a disability. The original ADA defined a person with a disability as someone who has a condition that “substantially limits major life activities.” Courts defined this wording in a very conservative way, which meant that a number of ADA lawsuits, like the famous Sutton vs. United Airlines case of 1999, and Toyota vs. Williams in 2002, were dismissed because the plaintiff wasn’t considered to have a disability.
Under the 2018 amendment, “major life activity” was redefined to include daily activities like caring for oneself or performing manual operations. It was also extended to include impairments to major bodily functions like digestive and respiratory functions, and neurological impairments, as legal disabilities.
There’s a common misbelief that ADA only applies to very large corporations, but that’s a serious mistake. All types and all sizes of businesses have to comply with ADA legislation, for their customers, and for their employees if there are over 15 employees. That means that ADA affects:
It was clear from the beginning that ADA affected every kind of business in the physical realm, but it’s less obvious that it covers websites and online spaces. The 1990 bill obviously did not predict today’s huge breadth of internet use. The past decade brought a range of rulings from the U.S. courts affirming that websites does qualify as a "public place of accommodation."
As the internet became more important and websites played a bigger role in the way that consumers interact with businesses, the way that ADA is applied to web accessibility began to be enforced in 2017. Since 2017, a clear consensus emerged that ADA also covers the online world. Disability civilrights activists and court rulings have agreed that websites, internet portals, and online stores also need to be accessible for people with disabilities.
In September 2018, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote an official letter to members of Congress that said “The Department first articulated its interpretation that the ADA applies to public accommodations' websites over 20 years ago. This interpretation is consistent with the ADA's...requirement that the goods, services, privileges, or activities provided by places of public accommodation be equally accessible to people with disabilities."
Today, U.S. courts apply ADA and its accessibility requirements to the online domain, which means that websites should comply with ADA rules.
ADA’s relevance to web accessibility isn’t just theoretical. Since 2017, the number of ADA title III-related lawsuits skyrocketed. In 2017, 816 ADA Title III lawsuits were filed, but in 2018 that number rose to over 2,200 cases. That’s a rise of 150%, and it’s only the tip of the iceberg. It doesn’t reveal the increasing number of ADA legal complaints and lawyers’ demand letters that were filed against businesses with non-accessible websites in the last few years, because they never become part of the public record.
Experts estimate that approximately 40,000 demand letters were sent in 2018, and 2019 has peaked with over 100,000 demand letters and over 10,000 lawsuits.
There are a few reasons why ADA web accessibility has become such a hot legal topic in just the last few years.
One element is that commerce has shifted dramatically to the digital sphere. eCommerce boomed, rising from a total market value of $449 billion in 2017 to $517 billion in 2018. Online retail purchases now represent almost 15% of all retail spending, and the numbers are still going up.
What’s more, many of our regular activities have transferred to the internet, like ordering a cab, booking a doctor’s appointment, or checking on bus times. As web interactions become fundamental to our daily lives, web accessibility has become more important.
The last few years also saw a spread in awareness about web accessibility. High profile lawsuits and the increasing knowledge about ADA title III means that people with disabilities now know that they have legal recourse when they can’t complete activities online. Millennials and Generation Z are also a lot less likely to stay quiet in the face of discrimination and inaccessibility.
At the moment, the legal environment in the US makes it very advantageous for someone with disabilities to sue businesses under ADA Title III. Unlike many other areas of the law, ADA makes clear that the defendant automatically has to pay the plaintiff’s legal fees, so a disabled user has nothing to lose by filing a lawsuit.
The vast majority of ADA Title III lawsuits find in favor of the plaintiff. Through a series of findings, settlement agreements, and an official letter to lawmakers, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has made it clear that ADA compliance includes web accessibility.
Web accessibility cases against giants like Domino's, Nike, and Beyonce made the headlines, but the majority of lawsuits have been filed against small and medium businesses. It’s estimated that 85% of ADA lawsuits in federal and state courts in 2018 were filed against small and medium retail businesses.
Since it’s almost inevitable that the court would find in favor of the plaintiff, small business owners often feel that they have no choice but to settle out of court. The cost of defending a lawsuit would destroy even a medium-sized business, but the average settlement agreement still comes to $35,000.
The implications are clear: a non-accessible website is a major liability for any company operating on the web today. It’s worth remembering that the market of people with disabilities is also rising. At around $21 billion, it’s worth more than the African-American and the Hispanic markets combined.
In 2019, digital accessibility has become a fundamental principle for all marketers and businesses who understand that users’ needs always come first. If you want to keep your business safe from ADA web accessibility lawsuits, appeal to customers with disabilities, and feel that you are upholding the social fabric, you need an accessibility solution for your website.
Although the DOJ has declined to adopt any official legal standard for the ADA, it has frequently referenced the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Many rulings set WCAG 2.0 Level AA as the goal for website accessibility, even though this isn’t codified into law. At the moment, WCAG 2.0 is the standard of web accessibility when it comes to federal law, and it’s unlikely that a site that’s WCAG 2.0 Level AA compliant would be sued for lack of accessibility.
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