Federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance is an issue that many private sector businesses have not addressed in their websites. However, most government and not-for-profit websites are pushing forward with making their online content compliant. A recent ruling by a California district court against target.com (Target Stores) may make businesses rethink compliance with the ADA.
The National Federation of the Blind filed a class action lawsuit against target.com (Target Stores) claiming that target.com violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, and as such can be sued. In response Target argued that their website was compliant, but that their website was not a "place of public accommodation" as defined by the ADA. The judge disagreed with Target's claim and has permitted the lawsuit to proceed.
While the outcome of the lawsuit is still unknown, there are several reasons to make websites ADA compliant. According to the 2000 US Census, nearly 50 million Americans (one of every five people age 5 and older) have a disability. That number is expected to increase as the US population continues to age and becomes more prone to disabling injuries and illnesses.
Until recently, website ADA compliance was a very gray issue. To a certain extent, it continues to be shades of gray today. There are lots of types of disabilities (blindness, color blindness, stroke/paralysis) and there are many varieties of technologies (text readers, alternative browsers, etc.) used to help or enable people with disabilities to access web documents. An understanding of these issues is the first step to making a website ADA compliant.
Other issues to consider in making a website ADA compliant include:
What level of compliance is desired
How will ADA compliance impact the ability to utilize new technologies
What are the benefits and costs of achieving (or not achieving) ADA compliance
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has identified three levels ("checkpoints") of web content accessibility. Priority 1 checkpoints are minimum criteria that must be met in order for some groups to be able to use Web documents. Failing to meet these criteria will make it impossible to for some users to access information in the document. Priority 2 and Priority 3 checkpoints are additional criteria that remove significant barriers to accessing web documents.
In some cases, the only way to achieve the Priority 1 checkpoints is to offer text-only web content. However, even text-only content requires the development of new site navigation, hidden links invisible to typical browsers, limitations on the use of stylesheets, and the implementation of other strategies that are friendly to the disabled and the technologies they use.
New web technologies are continually emerging that challenge web accessibility. These include technologies such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), DHTML, mobile content, and multimedia. Making these technologies accessible requires that developers understand how people with disabilities access web content, and requires that new applications be tested to meet the necessary checkpoints.
While there are costs involved in moving towards making a website accessible, the process can be staged to meet budget needs. Disabled populations are using the web on an increasing basis. There can be great benefits to opening up a website to a larger population, which includes people with and without disabilities. Few website improvements have the potential of opening up your product line to a community of 50 million potential customers.
Contact Wild-Webs for more information on ADA compliance, or to help you develop a plan for becoming ADA compliant. We can also conduct a compliance audit of your website.
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