Not being ADA Compliant and not following the WCAG 2.0 Standards can be a costly mistake.
It is important to remember that when we have a virtual presence that is an echo of our physical presence, then forgetting to include different demographics of society, can not only be very hurtful, but it can also cost you, the business owner a lot of money.
There are many solutions out there now a days to get your website where it is accessible to those with disabilities.
It is just as important as making your physical brick and mortar accessible to those with disabilities.
You want your clients to feel welcome and not have to turn away clients and discriminate against them unknowingly because that is the thing it is not known in most of the cases.
Here are a list of lawsuits filed by different people with disabiltiies , against companies that didn’t have their website up to WCAG 2.0 Standards or ADA compliant.
Beyoncé
Industry: Entertainment
Beyoncé was sued for having a website that didn’t meet accessibility standards.
It all began with a class action suit filed by a woman named Mary Conor. Mary has a visual impairment and filed a lawsuit because Beyonce’s website had not been built to meet the WCAG 2.0 AA Standards.
Reason behind suit?
These ones are common ones too.
- No alt-text on images – images on every website must include an element called an “alt-tag,” which gives screen readers an idea of what the image is for. For example, if you are selling a black, sparkly purse, you will want your alt-tag to read just that.
- No accessible drop-down menus – accessible drop-down menus allow those with visual impairments the ability to click through all pages of a website.
- No keyboard access – screen reading software looks to keyboard movement to help visually impaired users navigate web pages through the website. If keyboard tabbing abilities aren’t in place, someone using a screen reader would have a hard time accessing pages throughout the website.
Domino’s Pizza
Industry: Restaurants/Food & Beverage
Guillermo Robles filed a lawsuit in September of 2016 claiming his screen reading software wasn’t allowing him to customize orders or use coupons. Since Dominos website wasn’t WCAG 2.0 Compliant , the judge ruled in favour of Guillermo Robles.
Source: https://www.courthousenews.com/court-says-dominos-pizza-website-must-be-accessible-to-the-blind/
Fox News Network
Industry: Media/News/Entertainment
Fox News Network was sued because their website didn’t meet WCAG 2.0 standards
,Luc Burbon, a visually impaired man from the US of A claimed that Fox new’s website stopped Mr Burbon from being able to attend live events and broadcasts that audience members can attend because the site wasn’t ADA Compliant.
Source: https://lovata.com/blog/ada-website-compliance-lawsuits-recent-and-high-profile.html
Burger King
Industry: Restaurants/Food & Beverage
In January 2018, a class action lawsuit was filed against Burger King by another visually-impaired person. She couldn’t access the entire website due to her visual impairment. This was her and a few other visually impaired people’s experience because their screen reading software wasn’t compatible with Burger King’s website.
Nike
Industry: Retail/Fashion
In 2017 – 2018, Nike and Converse were sued by a visually impaired person who said her screen reading software wouldn’t work for her when on their sites. Source: https://www.accessiblemetrics.com/blog/4-key-takeaways-from-2018-web-accessibility-lawsuits/
Blue Apron
Industry: Food/E-Commerce
Blue Apron is an online business that provides delivered meal kits to people that order this monthly or weekly service. Again, a person who is blind, couldn’t order things properly because her screen reader wasn’t working with the website. Not sure why they don’t sue the screen readers to be a better software.
CVS Pharmacy
Industry: Retail/Medicine
CVS is one of the largest convenience/pharmacy stores in the United States (hence the industry titled with medicine). In 2017, a woman named Kyla Reed, sued CVS because she claimed that blind individuals are not able to access key features of the website that are directly integrated with its physical location. For example, if a blind person is unable to order prescriptions online, that is in direct violation with the ADA, because then they can’t process an order that would normally be easy to process and pick up for anyone but because the site was not ADA compatible , there was a lawsuit filed and CVS lost.
Source: https://icharts.net/ada-compliance/
Harvard
Industry: Education
Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were both sued in 2016 because their websites failed to make their massive open online courses, guest lectures, and other video content accessible to people who are deaf.
Harvard and MIT were sued in 2016 for not having their online courses, lectures video content and other matters inaccessible to people with hearing impairments. The case was filed by The National Association of the Deaf. This is still an ongoing case.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR WEBSITE ADA COMPLIANT
Most of these cases were filed by people with visual impairment issues and it had to do with screen reader software. Alt-description on photos are really important too because the screen reader software will read that description to the person using the software and navigating the site. That way they have a better and easier experience. Of course , there are more disabilities than just visual ones and that is why we do a well rounded report audit on your site to see where you need work done and we take care of a manual adjustment to your sites code to make it compliant and then we add our widget to the site to run in the background and add extras for people with other disabilities such as epilepsy and ADHD.
If you are thinking about making your website ADA compliant, It is most highly recommended contacting a web firm that specializes in ADA Compliancy and is familiar with WCAG 2.0 standards. Here at VMS, we have expert staff that knows the ins and outs of ADA compliance and WCAG 2.0 Standards.
To learn more about our ADA website compliance services, contact us today.
