3 Truths I Know About Accessibility That Are Not Impacted or Decided by Courts or Rules
Casey Naiduk, Head of Content and Experience
Last month, the world of digital accessibility got a little more confusing for a lot of people. The landmark ruling in Gil v. Winn-Dixie — that four years ago established a strong precedent that websites are places of public accommodation and that the plaintiff's ADA Title III rights had been violated due to the website's lack of screen reader compatibility — was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
While my personal view is that the decision won't have widespread impact outside of the Eleventh Circuit's area (and may even become complicated as the reigning precedent within the Eleventh Circuit if there is movement on answering this question by the Biden DOJ or otherwise), I understand fully why businesses might be scratching their heads at how this impacts their legal obligations to customers with disabilities.
I'd like to remind everyone that accessibility isn't exclusively a legal question decided by courts, and I encourage business owners and everyone else to consider what I feel are unwavering truths to that end.
Accessible products are better products.
The free market will gravitate ultimately toward accessible products.
Accessibility fails can be embarrassing, hard to recover from, and can almost always be avoided.
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