Risks of Your Financial Website Not Being ADA Compliant
Making physical and digital spaces accessible to all, particularly for those with disabilities, is a key part of the ADA’s mission. When it comes to digital spaces, that can mean your website, mobile appp, email campaigns, social media posts, company videos, and more. Similar to how ramps provide the same access for those who are wheelchair-bound to physical buildings, digital spaces can fall under federal mandates for accessibility—and those companies owning those digital spaces could be held liable for non-compliance.
In the article, “So Sue Me,” published in September 2023, The Economist reported that since 2018, “More than 16,700 digital-accessibility lawsuits have been filed in state and federal courts.” These lawsuits typically address digital experiences that don’t effectively address the needs of those with limited vision, blindness, color blindness, hearing disabilities, and more.
Although the ADA only allows winning plaintiffs to recover attorney’s fees, for those companies operating in Florida and California, plaintiffs may also be able to recover damages at a state level. Because of the seeming ease with which plaintiffs have been winning lawsuits over the past 6 years, a limited number of individuals and law firms have been filing lawsuits at startling amounts. The Economist stated, “In a single month in 2018 a blind man in Queens filed 43 lawsuits.” And, “In the year from January 2022, six people, represented by one law firm, brought 435 suits.” Finally, “The most active plaintiffs in 2021 and 2022 filed over 100 lawsuits each.”
Unlike wheelchair ramps in physical spaces, the ADA doesn’t provide clearly-defined standards for digital spaces; however, a group of guidelines which are often updated, known as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines is commonly followed by companies seeking to address accessibility issues. You can find those guidelines here.
In recent years, some companies (particularly larger companies) decided that rather than conducting a full audit of all their digital experiences and addressing the problems that arose, they instead invested in technology which would provide an overlay of their existing experiences and provide a unique experience for those who are blind. Unfortunately, those overlays didn’t interact with the readers blind people use in the same way that it interacts with a website, so it created new problems. A source provided by The Economist, UsableNET, stated that just in the first half of 2023, more than 400 companies using overlays had been hit with lawsuits, demonstrating that the best way, and for right now, the only way to comply with accessibility regulations is to do the diligent work necessary: Audit and update your digital assets so that everyone can access the knowledge, resources, and tools you’ve provided.
To learn more about the ADA’s requirements for web accessibility, read “Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA.”