Review the 2024 legal landscape of website accessibility lawsuits with Accessibility.com President, Mark Shapiro, and Kris Rivenburgh, Founder of Accessible.org. Joined by Chris Werely, Vice President of Sales, UsableNet joins them to highlight UsableNet's services for assisting companies facing a demand letter or lawsuit because of website inaccessibility.
Mark and Kris review highlights from the cases in 2024, trends and key highlights. They also look towards 2025 and discuss emerging trends.
Get Accessibility.com's 2024 Website Accessibility Lawsuit Recap report here.
UsableNet's Jeff Adams also provides an engaging presentation titled "5 To-Dos for Your 2025 Web Accessibility Program."
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Lori Litz
Good day everyone. Welcome to today's Accessibility.com event, 2024 Digital Accessibility Lawsuit Recap: Key Legal Trends and Insights. What we plan to show you today is a recap of our complete report on the 2024 website accessibility lawsuits. We've got quite a few key takeaways from last year's, website accessibility legal landscape. And, we're going to pull out the trends, discuss them a little bit more in depth, and kind of highlight what we see as trends emerging for 2025.
Our first event, the discussion where we review the website accessibility lawsuit recap report, features our president, Mark Shapiro, and Kris Rivenburgh from Accessible.org. We'll also highlight our friends at UsableNet. Chris Werely will be discussing UsableNet and the accessibility services that they offer. And then if you stick around after the discussion, there's a second event starting at 2 p.m. that is featuring Jeff Adams from UsableNet titled “Five to Do's for your 2025 Web Accessibility Program.”
So stick around for that. All of our events are recorded and will be available later this evening for you to watch on demand. So if you can't stick around for everything today, rest assured you'll be able to access it at your convenience on demand. You'll receive an email from me this evening with instructions on how to access those.
Or you can always visit our website at Accessibility.com, just as it is Accessibility.com. And on the homepage there you should find links to News and Events up at the top. And if you click on that, there will be an option for Past Events. And you can find all of the recorded past events to consume on demand on your own time.
Thank you so much for being here today. As we go through the event, any questions that you have, please make sure to type them into the Q&A section. That's where the speakers will be looking for your questions. And leave the chat for networking and discussions amongst yourself. Zoom Events, which is the platform we're using for today, has a networking section built into it.
Go ahead and set up a profile and get to know other accessibility professionals in the area that are looking to network. As well. Now, without further ado, I'm going to send it over to Mark and Kris for today's main event.
Mark Shapiro
We're joined today by Kris Rivenburgh, the attorney and Founder of Accessible.org. Kris, thank you for joining us today. Appreciate it.
Kris Rivenburgh
Absolutely. Mark, it's so nice to be here.
Mark Shapiro
Today's agenda, we are going to discuss what the accessibility trends and data was for 2024. Just gonna review some of the common issues in the demand letters and the lawsuits. We're also going to go through some of the key plaintiffs and the law firms that are generating these suits, and go through some of the the insights that we discovered about the industry and the geographical locations of these lawsuits.
We're also going to go into some 2025 predictions and recommendations. And at the end, we're going to go through a question and answer period. To start with, in terms of the legal process. What... one thing that we all noticed is most of these lawsuits are being generated, basically by companies getting lists of organizations. They're not necessarily issues that people have with the websites to start with.
It almost starts with the D & B list, or a technology list, or somebody goes to a digital marketplace, even walks through a mall. And then from there they're generating demand letters and then lawsuits are filed. Resolving lawsuits generally is paying the attorneys as the the bottom line of it. So, Kris, want to through some of the common issues that these, that are cited, the demand letters?
Kris Rivenburgh
Yeah. When you when you research the complaints filed in court, you can see certain issues are going to come up over and over again. Some more than others. But the most commonly claimed accessibility issue is going to involve alt text. And I think one thing that's important for people to keep in mind is these don't, although these tie to the the web content accessibility guidelines, the success criteria, they don't always... it's not always a 1 to 1.
So it's more like the issue in application. So there are issues that deal with alt text. And here you have missing or non descriptive all text for images. There is also, there are also nondescript if links to where the link text, the anchor text, is ambiguous like click here or learn more. Form field issues are also commonly claimed.
So what's important is that there are not only visual labels, but there are also programmatic labels. So that's going to be a more advanced fix. But it's certainly something that people need to be aware of anytime they have form fields. So making sure that those labels are there. Also that there are instructions for filling out the form fields.
And then we have, making sure multimedia content is accessible. So especially with videos, making sure that there are closed captions, if there are, if there are any, instances of audio. So for podcasts, as a great example, you want to make sure to have a text transcript. But of course, right now it's like we're going through the web content accessibility accessibility guidelines.
But some of these issues are coming up a lot. And then of course, keyboard navigation is absolutely essential. This is one of the most commonly claimed accessibility issues. And, and you know, you're a lot of times, not all the time. But one thing to keep in mind is that plaintiff’s lawyers have different approaches to whether or not to deciding whether or not they want to target a lawsuit.
And so sometimes they will actually have teams of accessibility professionals that are testing the website. And again, there are diverse methods out there for whether or not to decide, but keyboard navigation is absolutely essential. And then, also on the list is color contrast. So occasionally you will see claims that there's insufficient color contrast.
Mark Shapiro
The... so what's typically cited in these lawsuits?
Kris Rivenburgh
So, so this is when we look at what is typically cited, this is where, this is where we get to that practical application of the accessibility issues. So what is... what is most often the scenario is that the plaintiff is going to be blind or visually impaired. And so we see... we see the complaint site to a screen reader user being unable to read.
So for example, banners or navigation links. Again missing alternative text comes up quite often. And then if you do have an e-commerce website where there is a checkout, you need to make sure that that user flow is free of accessibility issues. That is particularly important. And then when we look at the complaints, there are your just one thing to know about these types of cases is that there will be relief sought.
So if you look at the actual complaint, if you get to that point, right? This is beyond a demand letter, but there will be a request for a, an injunction. And this is to ensure compliance. There will be of course, there will be damages. And then the, the essential, what you will always find, is a request for attorney's fees and court costs.
Mark Shapiro
In terms of the methodology that we use, we try staying consistent year over year to what we're specifically looking for. We look at only, things that we can verify. So our lawsuits are extremely specific to website accessibility lawsuits. We read the complaints, and we put it up on our website. So everything is actually backed up. And unfortunately it excludes the demand letters that are settled before the filing.
There's really no way to get when a demand letter is sent because it's all considered confidential. And then the information that we went through is specific to January through December, reflecting all the relevant state filings.
From the data, one thing that we saw is consumer durables, 30%, and food and beverage. That represents half of what we saw. And one of the big things that we've seen is retailing, especially with e-commerce definitely creeping up there. And then almost cross-border it it starts hitting household and consumer services. Kind of goes down the line from there.
In terms of the states, New York always dominating and then California in second. Kris, why do you think New York and California are so big?
Kris Rivenburgh
Well, that's where we see a concentration of the most active plaintiffs’ law firms. And we also see courts, even with California now, the, the plaintiffs’ lawyers have to resort to the state courts. But in New York, there are, there are multiple venues that have been, have been receptive to be... receptive to hearing these types of claims.
I think this is just where the plaintiff's law firms are, and this is where they could collect damages. In California, we have the, I refer to as the Unruh access, the Unruh Act. And then in New York, we also have the local state law. So we have the New York City and and state human rights laws.
And then, and then we have Florida and Pennsylvania and Illinois becoming more active states in this type of litigation.
Mark Shapiro
In terms of the plaintiffs that filed the most, about 20% came from five law firms. What does that tell you as an attorney when you hear something like that?
Kris Rivenburgh
Just that there is a... there's an industry here, right? This is this is serial litigation. And these plaintiffs’ law firms have found tremendous success. They're printing money with this. And so they're going to keep coming back to this until there is something that gets in their way, there’s something that’s stopping them. But otherwise they're going to keep going and going, and they're not going to stop until it’s it.
And so this, there have been many plaintiffs’ law firms that this has been a very lucrative niche to be in for. And so they're going to continue on. And so I think that's, just that's just a marker that they're experiencing tremendous success.
Mark Shapiro
A lot of attorneys think that, you know, once you settle with a law firm that you're done. You're all set. What do you think about that?
Kris Rivenburgh
No. So just because, like, the way to look at this is just because you have, you have, resolved one issue or won one case, it doesn't mean that there's not another plaintiff's law firm that couldn't bring a a similar or the exact same, exact same type of case. So having a settlement with one, with one plaintiff's law firm just means you have a settlement with that law firm.
It does not prevent anybody else from coming in and sending a demand letter or filing a complaint.
Mark Shapiro
And that explains why almost half of these companies are, have been targeted at least one or more times.
Kris Rivenburgh
Yeah. And that and there's just like, I think for a lot of, a lot of small businesses and mid-sized companies, even Fortune 500 companies, right? The larger corporations, I don't think they're I think this is something that they might not know about initially, and then they... a lot tend to think that this won't happen to them, especially the smaller entities, like a small business.
They think that this is a website thing that doesn't necessarily apply to them, even if you tell them that directly. And then when they find out, then they're like, okay, well, you know, like you said, like we just talked about, well, this has been completed, right? I had this case, I settled it, and then it happens again, and then they're even more frustrated.
But I think it's just because they don't... This doesn't fully sink in for a lot of people until it's happened. Right? And until it's too late to preempt that first lawsuit.
Mark Shapiro
62% of the lawsuits were filed by the same five law firms.
Kris Rivenburgh
Yeah, we see these... We see these names come up a lot, right? When we're looking through the complaints filed. And Stein Sachs, Manning Law, sometimes you'll see different, different lawyers signing the complaint. But these are the names that have continually come up. And we have seen some new names that come up that are coming up more frequently now as other plaintiffs’ law firms are, are joining in.
But these are the names. And we could see that here there are two in New York and three from California. And these are the most active plaintiffs’ law firms. Stein Sachs, Manning Law, Gabriel Levy, Mars Khaimov, and then Pacific Trial Attorneys in California. And these and most of these, I think I think every single one of these has been in this business for years.
Mark Shapiro
We also know of a lot of law firms that have never actually filed a lawsuit. They're just sending out thousands and thousands of demand letters and just waiting for somebody to to settle. So the settlements range from $2000 to probably $50,000. But that's just the settlement. You still have to pay for your attorney and all your people's time.
Kris Rivenburgh
Yeah, I think that's actually, you know, that's something I try to tell clients is that this is, these plaintiffs’ law firms are not the same. And it's it's easy to lump them together because, of course, this is a a very specific niche industry, but they are they're different, right? They have different approaches and they have different ways that they view this.
And so when you look at their complaints, this comes through very clearly. Right? Even though we don't know exactly how each plaintiff's law firm arrived at this complaint. Right? What what their process was. Did they send a demand letter? What did the demand letter say? How did they find the issues initially? Did they find the initial issues initially or did they find them after the fact?
Right? We don't know the exact process for each, but we do know the end result. We can see that in the complaint. We can also, we can also somewhat know, through anecdotal evidence. Right? Just talking to clients what the different settlement amounts are. But what we do know is that they don't always approach this the same. So I think that's very important for people to remember, because sometimes people hear stories and they apply them broadly.
But it's important for everyone to know that these plaintiffs’ law firms are acting, are mostly acting independently. And so they just have the different ways that they go about this. So, one website accessibility, you know, lawsuit can be, can be very much different from another. So I think that's another important takeaway from this presentation.
Mark Shapiro
So based on using the exact same criteria, we saw a decrease in specifically website accessibility lawsuits. So if the mobile accessibility lawsuits, we don't track that separately. And we did want to be consistent. So specific to website accessibility, we're seeing somewhat of a downturn. We don't know if that means that there's more settlements. You know, we don't know exactly what it means, but what do you see?
And what do you hear out there?
Kris Rivenburgh
Well, one thing I've always liked about Accessibility.com’s research is you guys are so precise. And I could tell that because I would be looking through, you know, my, my dockets, my wires, and looking at the cases coming through, and the numbers reconcile. Not that I accounted for each, each single complaint. But collecting all these complaints from, not only Federal Court but especially State Court, because some State Court’s reporting is... their reporting methodologies are different.
Some State Courts, the cases are collected manually. It's it's very difficult to track everything. But I've always thought that your numbers were on point. And you'll see some other numbers where, the, the cases filed look extremely high and it's very difficult to, to... When I was researching to look through this and reconcile those numbers.
So I just wanted to add that first, that I think Accessibility.com’s numbers are the most accurate in the industry. But when I see this, I think that, one, there, they're there is increasing difficulty on the part of the plaintiffs’ law firms because this isn't... Over the last, let's say 1 or 2 years, this hasn't been as easy as it was in previous years.
In previous years, they were catching a lot of their, their targeted, organizations. They were catching them off guard. Defense attorneys weren't as familiar with how to defend these types of cases. The courts weren't as aware of what was happening. And now that we've seen after several years, everybody is aware of the game that is being played.
And of course, the subject here is website accessibility litigation, primarily. But we do know that this is very much serial litigation that has taken place. So I think that as more of the the involved parties are aware, the more difficult it has become for plaintiffs’ law firms because everyone is aware of this systematic approach. So I think with courts, you're seeing courts that are more resistant to these types of cases.
They're making rulings that are generally more adverse to plaintiffs’ law firms. And I think you're you're seeing sometimes the, the website owner is actually defending against these cases. They're hiring defense law firms and the defense law firms are not simply accepting what the plaintiff's law firm is saying, and they are putting up, they're putting up a defense.
They're countering this, these these initial complaints that are being filed. They're countering the demand letters. So I do think it has become slightly more difficult for plaintiffs’ law firms. This is not to say, right, that we have the complete picture. I'm putting it together a lot of this through anecdotal stories, what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing with clients and how they're operating.
But I do think there is more difficulty on the part of the plaintiffs’ law firms. And I think also, you know, as you as you touched on earlier, we see that the, we see that there are there is so much of litigation that is settled before it is ever becomes public knowledge. So this could be the fact that more, more plaintiffs law firms are settling out of court and before that a complaint is ever filed because they they know that it could be more difficult once they do file a complaint.
Mark, what do you think?
Mark Shapiro
Well, I want to make sure that the wrong takeaway isn't something that people take away. It's not that this topic is going away, it's that it's maturing. And that's vastly different. So by maturing, there's still people that cannot access your website who maybe are colorblind or have different challenges. Make it accessible. Whether it's a demand letter or an actual lawsuit, it's not going away as a, as a topic or a concept of what's important.
Kris Rivenburgh
No, definitely, definitely not going away. Right? Digital accessibility will only advance from here. But the legal landscape is one that I think is evolving. Right? And plaintiffs’ law firms have evolved with that. A great example of that is just the the use of scans. Scans are still used. It's still best practice to have zero issues. Zero errors return on the scan.
But of course, now we see plaintiffs’ law firms and they are using, they're going beyond scans. Right? They're not hiring teams of accessibility professionals to scan a website. They're hiring professionals to find accessibility issues themselves. So and again, not all plaintiffs’ law firms do this. But we do, we do see this industry evolving.
Mark Shapiro
Yeah. Part of that comes with the industry trends that we can see. We're seeing the more complex the retailing sites are, are increasing in terms of the share of lawsuits. We're seeing, you know, the e-commerce platforms in general are much more complex. So it makes sense that people would find specific issues with that, including the checkout process.
Mobile, you know, obviously that's that's massive. As everybody starts shifting to mobile. Navigating, etc. Geographically, California does have some additional laws, but Florida and Illinois is now also starting to to get more into the picture. So I do think we're going to see some other states start getting into this. Have you heard of other, other states enacting specific website accessibility or mobile accessibility laws?
Kris Rivenburgh
I can't ,I mean, the only thing I can think of off the top of my head would be HB 21110. I think I've got that right. I think it was three zeros. I think. But it’s in, it's in Colorado. Right? And that's, that's a law that's at the state government level, it's state and local government level within the state of California.
But and I got that I said that wrong, but it's for, it's a, it's a Colorado state law, but it's for public entities. So that's the one I can think of that is state specific. But, of course, you know, we can see these, these cases, the federal cases involving the Americans with Disabilities Act. We can see these being filed in state courts as well.
And I think we can add Texas to this list. Pennsylvania, New Jersey. I think I've seen Minnesota come up. So, yeah, we see these, we start we're starting to see sprink- cases sprinkled in different states throughout the US. So, while the numbers, while the numbers, we looked at the numbers and we saw that the complaints filed were down.
The activity may not have, you know, the activity may be at that same level, just not as much, not as much in the formal, in on the formal side, right? On the, on the court side, but maybe more in private. That's not actually making it public. So. Yeah, that's what I see as far as the states.
Mark Shapiro
In terms of some, trends we're seeing, we can make some predictions into 2025. What what do you see emerging?
Kris Rivenburgh
Well, one thing I see emerging, that's coming up more and more, that is the, if you have an overlay widget installed, this is actually working against you. So it's it's it's not only is it not making your website accessible, it's actually, some plaintiffs’ law firms are using this as a shortcut to know that there are accessibility issues on your site, or maybe the widget itself will be the accessibility, will create the accessibility issue.
And so plaintiffs’ law firms, in every single complaint I have read, they completely disregard the use of an overlay widget. So essentially people that are using widgets are paying for actually a net negative. They're, it's, they're paying for increased risk is really what's happening. So that's something I definitely have I've come across. Right? And you... I think that's on this slide here.
Let's see. Yeah, I know you've mentioned this before, Mark. What what what's something else that you are coming across?
Mark Shapiro
Well...
Just backing up your point, accessiBe just recently had to pay out over $1 million as they lost an FCC fight because of their their claims that were going too far. So you've got bad actors in the space, and then you have companies like AudioEye that actually does have manual testers and a tool, and they help, you know, at the DOM level, fix some of the code.
So it is kind of a balance between, you know, good actors and bad actors on the overlay side. But we definitely see AI emerging in terms of how it's helping people become more accessible and also how it's helping lawyers identify through AI what some of the accessibility issues are. Which I'm finding that kind of interesting.
Kris Rivenburgh
So 2.2 is always going to be the, like it's the it's the ultimate, right? Because it's the latest version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. When we look at conformance level AA, there are six additional success criteria that we can add to 2.1 AA. With 2.2, I think this is going above and beyond, because even when we look at the ADA Title II, the new rule that applies to digital content, they only, the Department of Justice, who is the regulatory and enforcement agency behind Title II and Title III, they elected to go with 2.1 AA.
So, I think 2.2 is... I refer I say this that that they're both best practices. 2.2 is obvious little obviously better. But with that comes more accessibility issues that you have to reconcile. So in complaints, we occasionally see 2.2 issues come up. I've even seen AAA conformance issues and even accessibility issues claims that aren't even in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
So I think this is something that that website owners really need to be aware of is that sometimes plaintiff's law firms are going way too far. And I think 2.2, if you see an issue for 2.2, I think this is even going too far for for the plaintiffs’ law firms, because we still don't even have the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines incorporated into Title III.
Right? We haven't seen an update to Title III. We're still still going off the meaningful access standards. So is your website... Is the content and functionality meaningfully accessible? That is the current legal standard. It's not the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are a reference for how to make your website meaningfully accessible. And it's an excellent reference, but it is not the law.
And so my my view of 2.2 is it's great if you can be here. Right? This is the optimal standard that we have. This is our optimal reference that we have a technical standard for. And obviously there are some additional things that we can do beyond the website Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. I like 2.2, but it, website owners have to know that it takes a lot to reach 2.2 conformance.
Right? Which is when we're looking at conformance level AA, there are still 55 success criteria that we need to account for and reconcile. And some of these are easy to understand, but they can take a long time to implement because of volume. And others are technically complex and you're going to need someone who has, who is an experienced developer.
So I like 2.2. I typically recommend 2.1 AA as a default. But 2.2, it's it's even better accessibility. It's even more optimal accessibility. It's just more difficult to be conformant with 2.2.
Mark Shapiro
Sure. And it gives the attorney something else to send a letter about, which, that's one of the reasons for the protection is it's it's just another standard. Just is that the EU is starting to have its different accessibility standards. How many other countries have there specific standards that you've seen?
Kris Rivenburgh
So what we'll see sometimes is sometimes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines will be incorporated into the law. Sometimes they will be adopted, and other times you will see a reference to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, but not a wholesale incorporation. So as your last bullet point has here we have the European Accessibility Act. And this act currently does not does not incorporate or adopt the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
But what it does do is it references them and you can tell it references them because they use the acronym perceivable, perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. So we can see that the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines would be a great reference for compliance. But what we don't see is the EAA use WCAG or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines anywhere in the language.
But of course there's EN 301 549, which does incorporate WCAG 2.1 AA. And I think we will eventually see A in it. There's version 4.1.1 of EN 301 549. And I think that will eventually be that the EAA will be what is it? I, I'm trying to think which one will be harmonized with the other, but basically you will be able to use EN301549, the updated version, to know when... You will have a presumption of conformity if you're conformant with EN 301 549, this new version, it will be it will basically mean that you are materially meeting the compliance requirements under the EAA. So, this this the European Accessibility Act is such, such an enormous... this is significant. It is extremely significant.
And it's going to change the face of accessibility across the globe. So I, I forgot the original question, but, we do see, we do see WCAG in a number of laws. So the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, the AODA, we see it in Section 508, but it's actually 2.0 AA is the current technical standard. That's going to be updated.
I think that should be updated fairly soon. I don't think that will stand that much longer. And then I'm trying to think HB 21-1110. We see 2.1 AA. Although I think the language of the, I think the language of that law actually says it's the most recent version, so that there's, there's something for the different public entities to think about.
But we do see various versions incorporated into the law. So, that's one thing to keeping track of. But I think if everyone remembers best practice right now is still WCAG 2.1 AA. That was the Title II, right? The to the new web rule that updated Title II regulation. That was the standard they chose. And then we saw the Section 508, not Section 508.
Section 504 was updated. And this was the Department of Health and Human Services update. So it's specifically for the Department of Health and Human Services. And they mirrored Title II which is 2.1. So when you're thinking about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the law, I think a good, I think a good default if you are looking for material compliance is WCAG 2.1 AA, unless you see 2.2 specifically mentioned.
Mark Shapiro
Right. So the the momentum's there. It's coming up on state, federal, international, all different levels. Government departments where the momentum's increasing is is the key takeaway. And you touched upon this before, in terms of businesses, you know, yeah, there's a lot of standards out there. It it's about building it accessibility into every part of what you do.
It's much easier to just do it right the first time to try to retroactively go back and fix your website. So it's building it in. But what what do you see, as you know, touching upon or expanding what you brought up earlier in terms of what do you recommend for businesses?
Kris Rivenburgh
Well, I, I really like one thing that you have here is training because what I, what I commonly, what I want, what I want my clients to know is that, look, yes you can source to third party providers, but you ultimately want to have at least some knowledge of accessibility in-house. So it's important to know that accessibility is a it's really a subset of knowledge, right?
It's specialized knowledge. This is not something that just because you're a web designer or a web developer, that you have because you have that experience in that skill set. You have to learn accessibility. And then accessibility works on top of that existing knowledge. So you need that that knowledge base. But then you need like you like you said here, to train your teams on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and implement that into your content creation process, into your development processes.
So you need to implement that. And so I recommend that at initially you will need to source out this, this work because you just won't have that expertise in-house. And by the way, it does take some time to develop expertise. But what you want to do is while you're sourcing out services that you start to train as soon as possible and develop that proficiency in-house. And over time as your team, games experience and accessibility, and becomes more familiar with it then they will they can become experts themselves.
And that's really that's that's the ultimate right there. And then here you have audit. And so yeah, you will source out the audit. But one thing that I especially like is that when clients work through audits they are educating their team on accessibility. You can't help it because you're practically gaining that experience as you work through the audit. And your understanding, okay, this is an accessibility issue.
Here's why it's an accessibility issue. Here's what the recommended fixes. And by the way, I think a good one good stopping point here is that, the audience knows that accessibility is divided really into two. I think of it in two ways. There's the technically complex aspect of accessibility. And here we're dealing more with the code. And then there's the other part of accessibility that is more beginner friendly, and it's more just a matter of learning what the accessibility considerations are and implementing them.
So thinking about issues like color contrast, this is not technically complex. Closed captions, same thing. Transscripts, same thing. And the list goes on. So I think that's really important for people to know is that even beginners can start working on accessibility, even if you aren't familiar with the more advanced technical aspects. So what you have here auditing regular audits.
Yeah. I mean, you know, if you if you start with an audit, work through those issues, make sure you finish complete the audit, right? Resolve all those issues, work towards conformance and do that for your digital assets that prioritize those digital assets. So obviously your website would be a priority. And then your mobile application, if you have one, would be another priority.
But website accessibility is always going to go first. Then even within the website you're going to make sure to prioritize certain pages on your website. You're going to train your team. That is that is absolutely essential because you want to make sure that it's not a completely disjointed process where your team is creating a website or content that is inaccessible, and then you're trying to work on accessibility after the fact.
At the very least, you want to reduce the amount of accessibility issues that result from your creation processes. And then you have here include individuals with disabilities in usability testing. Do you want to speak on that?
Mark Shapiro
You know, the people that are actually, if you have people that do actually have challenges with your website. Yeah, you could say the the lawyers, most of them are ambulance chasers and they don't really necessarily care that there's an issue, but there are legitimate people that have challenges with your websites. And having people who are actually visually impaired going through your website, giving you the experience of what do they, air quotes, see in terms of what you have on your website.
And for somebody that has challenges hearing, what you know, what from their perspective, what do they hear? What do they require? What should be translated? What should be, what should be translated to closed caption, what should be have different alternate text, etc. But people who actually have challenges listening from their perspective, it gives you a different way to look at it.
So we we highly recommend you actually, you know, have people that have the different challenges going through and using them for usability testing.
Kris, this has been just fantastic information. Really appreciate you helping us out on this.
Kris Rivenburgh
Absolutely, Mark. Yet thank you so much for having me. And, I've always liked Accessibility.com. And I like looking at your website. So, great resource. Thank you for putting this together and having me on. So I really appreciate it. And thanks to everyone who was watching.
Mark Shapiro
Thanks. All right.
We're pleased to have with us today Chris Wereley, who's the VP of Sales at UsableNet. Chris, thanks for joining us today.
Chris Werely
Thanks for having me, Mark.
Mark Shapiro
To start with, how does UsableNet help businesses protect themselves against lawsuits?
Chris Werely
Well, you really can't protect yourself against a lawsuit unless you're more accessible. These things really go hand in hand. So, all of our solutions and services are really oriented to help meaningfully increase accessibility, decrease the effort for our customers. And everything we do includes people with disabilities. So we're not only making sure that, a website, or an app is accessible, but it's, it's also usable.
So that's really the foundation of where things start.
Mark Shapiro
When a company gets a demand letter and there's a whole list of issues highlighted, how do you help them?
Chris Werely
So we have a couple different services. And technology products that we offer. But and one of them is a managed service where we help customers, we actually do the remediation. We use our platform and our expert developers. In the instance of a customer ever gets a claim or, a demand letter, and they're using that service.
We actually provide the most robust legal protection in the industry and even have an indemnity clause. Kind of help take the the claim off of their plate. Nobody else offers that. And it really stands alone in that space. We also provide services where we enable our customers with tools or guidance for them to make the websites accessible in the event that they get a claim or lawsuit and they're working with us. We provide litigation support in the form of reviewing claims, providing our feedback and analysis, and even introducing them to lawyers and a robust legal network that we have.
Mark Shapiro
So how do you do audits and monitoring services to ensure that clients are going to stay compliant with the accessibility standards?
Chris Werely
Yeah. So when, again, kind of go back to our two products and services. In the managed service, we take a very proactive, stance. We are doing continuous automated testing. Keyboard testing, screen reader testing. And then at least once a quarter, we have a person with disabilities to test the site. So we do that in our managed service, and we actually offer that same process and, and schedule to our customers who might be managing accessibility themselves.
So, you know, we, we have a kind of a robust process to enable customers to continuously test and monitor. And then, of course, we also provide tools for developers and designers to be able to bake accessibility into their processes as well. That's that that's often where we can make the most headway.
Mark Shapiro
Okay.
What role does UsableNet play in educating businesses about the risk and responsibilities of digital accessibility?
Chris Werely
Well, we partner with our stakeholders, our customers, whether those are folks in legal, IT, marketing, or other aspects of the business to really understand what their goals are. As it relates to, you know, generally we find as companies are trying to reduce their risk, improve their customer experience through becoming more accessible, or they're trying to, they're trying to improve their, their, efficiency and really, you know, reduce their costs.
So kind of try to look at all of those aspects and guide the customer to, to really the best solution, you know, risk being a big part of it that's driven by the lawsuits. So, you know, we we help them really understand maybe, you know, what their baseline is, what are the things that they can do quickly to reduce the risk profile?
And then have a sustainable, ongoing program to, to improve risk, increase accessibility, and do it cost effectively.
Mark Shapiro
Okay. Chris, this has been very helpful. We appreciate you giving us the lowdown on UsableNet. We appreciate it.
Chris Werely
Thanks for having me, Mark. Look forward to doing this again sometime.
Mark Shapiro
In terms of the next section, we're going to go through some of the the questions that the people have been sending in, and answers. So first question. So this is actually very, kind of a hot topic right now. Will the reduction in DEI initiatives lead to a decrease in accessible related lawsuits? And, Kris, why don’t you take this one?
Kris Rivenburgh
Absolutely not. There's no there's no... that is completely separate from the legal landscape. Right? So is there a decrease in lawsuits? No, I see no reason why given the dynamics that currently exist in the legal landscape, I see no reason why the number of lawsuits would decrease.
Mark Shapiro
How effective are automated tools compared to manual testing and ensuring accessible compliance? Chris, why don’t you take this?
Chris Werely
So we get that question a lot. They really have to be done together. You can't solely rely on automation. And, manual testing can be time consuming and expensive. So, you know, the automated tests can pick up, you know, about 20 to 30% of the WCAG success criteria, and the others need to be tested with, with, you have to perform manual testing.
So they really work together. Automated tests can be indicative, can help find smoke, you know, where there might be a fire and, also help reduce the risk profile for customers. So you can't really talk about an accessibility solution without doing both.
Mark Shapiro
Okay. Next question. What are the fully burdened costs of resolving an accessible accessibility lawsuit including settlement, legal fees and compliance updates? And, Kris, why don’t take this one?
Kris Rivenburgh
So the costs are going to range, but I think a good settlement range is going to be $5 to $20,000. And that will go to the plaintiffs’ law firm. And that's to settle the the case entirely. Right? So that ranges $5 to $20,000. For defense fees, I think you're typically going to range here from $2000 to let's say, $12,500.
And that range is just me putting an estimate on how far do you want to take this? Who do you hire as a defense attorney? And how much time are they spending in this? How much time are they investing? If you settle rather quickly, then that number is going to be lower. Also, just some some defense attorneys are just, they cost less than others.
And then it just, you know, if you get a prestigious law firm who is active in the space and who is inside this industry, then they're going to it's going to be a little bit more. And then as far as actually working through accessibility with an audit, you're looking at probably $2,500 on the lower side and then $7,500 on the higher side.
Speaking to website accessibility specifically, it's really going to depend on the status of your website. What WCAG standard you'd like to audit and work through the resources you have available to remediate on your side. So just think of the audit as $2500 to $7500. The, the remediation as probably, around that same range.
And then, I think I think that would probably cover you. So most website owners can expect to pay at least, I would say at least $5,000 and then upwards towards $15,000. Again, it really depends on who who these different contractors are you work with, what accessibility company you work with. The the costs definitely range. So I think that's a good way, a good, range, a good general estimate of how much it can cost to work through, these the accessibility matters, including litigation.
Yeah.
Mark Shapiro
My bigger concern would always be the soft costs, you know, the costs of the management team getting involved, the cost of the web development team getting involved in getting all the meetings, getting all this stuff pulled together. Companies, I've seen larger companies spend 500, 1000, 1500 hours of human time just to pull all that stuff together. So, you know, as a larger company, you might be thinking, all right, $50K, we'll just pay it off.
It's those soft costs that are really going to kill you. You're talking just beyond the waste of time. The frustration, you know, potentially a half million dollars or $1 million in extra time. And it can happen again. And you can't necessarily reuse the same data. So to me, it's those soft costs that that's the real expense.
Kris Rivenburgh
You know. And you're right, Mark, because with the larger, you know, with the larger organizations this time, this these types of projects can just go on and on and on. So the cost can definitely get away from you. Depending on how many digital assets, how many people are involved. And then it just there's some inherent bureaucracy when you're working with larger teams and different teams at that.
There might be a content team involved, design, development. Everybody's trying to coordinate on this. And organization is key to keeping the cost to a minimum.
Mark Shapiro
All right. Next question. How might AI power tools and dynamic content increase legal scrutiny in the future? Kris, you want to take this?
Kris Rivenburgh
So I think AI in some ways makes it easier to identify accessibility issues. But this would be more of a manual application to me. Because when you look at AI, and you're using large language model models and of course, there are different tools that you can use, that are specific to certain accessibility issues. So there there can be some tools there that are going to help flag accessibility issues.
And there can also be, using AI, like I'm thinking of large language models specifically to help find accessibility issues that wouldn't otherwise be found by using a scan. I think scans are still the most the simplest and easiest way for plaintiffs’ law firms to find quick accessibility issues when they're going that route. But AI might enhance their ability to become more expert, so to speak, so to become more familiar with certain accessibility issues.
But I still think, you know, the way to look at scans is that they are not in the scans. The way to look at AI versus scans is that AI adds intelligence to where a scan doesn't. A scan is going to use rule sets. If this, if this, then that rule sets to flagged certain accessibility issues.
And then AI can integrate and fuse more intelligence into that aspect. However, the trade off is that AI is commonly it's making it has... There's so many errors. There's so many, you will come across so many times where AI gives you the exact wrong answer and you'll know this if you, if you, if you understand what you're doing. You can question AI and ask like, you know, why did you come up with this?
Or how is this the case? Or check your own work. And what you will find is that AI makes it produces a lot of errors. So, I think AI does make it easier accessibility issue. Accessibility easier in some respects. But in other respects there are drawbacks. Of course. Plaintiffs’ law firms, they're not going to care too much if there are if there are errors, they're more they're more concerned with, finding accessibility issues.
So I think that was what you originally asked me. It was about. Right.? You were asking about how was AI going to accelerate lawsuits? Something to that effect. Yeah. Yeah. I think AI is the way to look at accessibility tools as they stand. And I'm waiting for more advances in AI technology here. But right now, accessibility is still largely a manual effort.
There are some ways, some specific ways in which AI can accelerate your efforts, but they're more for people who are working on accessibility than they are for anything else. So they're not going to accept that. AI won't take care of accessibility for you, but it can make it easier in some respects. So a great way to think of this is with transcripts, right?
AI can help organize your transcripts. They can tell you where a certain word looks off or misspelled, etc. They can help you with adding speakers to your transcript. So, they can really help in certain respects so they can speed up the manual process. Another great example is with alternative text. Of course, if you have an infographic, it can be complex, difficult to describe.
AI can take care of that in seconds. So there's definitely some value to be had in AI. But it's like specific applications, and you definitely wouldn't want to give AI too much responsibility. Because what you'll notice is that AI, especially LMMs, they tend to bog down the more layers of of instructions that there are, but give it a simple instruction and a clear path to answering a prompt.
And it performs quite well. So I think AI is extremely useful and provides a lot of value, so long as you know the exactly how to use it.
Mark Shapiro
Will AI tools and dynamic content face more legal scrutiny in the future? Chris?
Chris Werely
Absolutely. One of the biggest challenges that we've seen and our customers have seen with AI is that, you know, the website operators are putting a humongous amount of trust in AI to, to really to, to fix a website. And the issue is that nobody at the customer site or the widget or AI operator, they're validating that the fixes actually work.
This is a big gap today in terms of what's being promised and what's actually being delivered. And the capability for the customer. So just because it's has AI or machine learning, which is kind of at the bleeding edge of technology, doesn’t mean that it actually works. But, you know, moving forward, we see that AI in the, in collaboration with the right, the right amount, with the right process around user testing and manual testing and developer led remediation can absolutely, make the whole process more, you know, get to better outcomes and do things more efficiently.
That's how we are using AI. We're using it to compliment the, the human and really user led approach. So, yeah, I think for the time being, we're going to continue to see AI under scrutiny because, you know, the the the offerings and the capabilities of our customers to really understand how they're working is, there's a bit there's a big gap.
Mark Shapiro
How can businesses stay updated with the changing accessibility regulation and litigation trends? Chris?
Chris Werely
Sure. I you know, I think that there's a lot of great resources out there. Your, your company obviously does a great job, Mark. And, you know, we're we're happy to partner with you on that. We provide a, a, a benchmark legal report every quarter. But we also released monthly updates where you can kind of keep an eye out there.
But the biggest thing I can say is control what you can control. And that's making your website accessible. You know, through any legal changes or number of lawsuits, the one thing that's been consistent is WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. So invest your effort and time into following that. Then that's your you probably your, your best prevention.
Lori Litz
And that's all the time we have today for questions and answers. Any questions that the speakers did not get to, they will follow up. Someone will follow up with you after the event. They'll reach out to you via email with answers, to continue your discussion. Thank you, Chris, Kris and Mark, for such a great presentation today on 2024 Website Accessibility Lawsuits Recap. Stick around. If you head on back out to the lobby after this, you can join the next event, presented by UsableNet, which features Jeff Adams speaking about Five To Do's for your 2025 Web Accessibility Program.
So, don't miss that. Great insights I'm sure to be found there on how to prepare and get through 2025 as you move forward on your digital accessibility journey. Again, today's events are recorded and will be available later for you this evening to watch on demand. You'll receive an email from me with instructions on how to access them as well as you can always head on out to Accessibility.com.
And on our website there, if it's not in one of the top section right there, one of those three panels, it will be found under News and Events across the top navigation bar. If you click on that, you'll find Past Events where you can access all of our past events on demand. So if you've missed anything over the last few years, check it out.
A lot of the material discussed still applies today. It's providing you that foundation for building your digital accessibility program within your business, so that you can serve everyone better and make it an inclusive, digital world for everyone. Coming up in a couple of weeks, we have our next event, which will be on February 18th. Again a Tuesday. So exactly two weeks from today. It's Building and Remediating Accessible Websites. So if you haven't signed up for that one yet. again on Accessibility.com, up at the top News and Events. You can click on that and you'll see our Upcoming Calendar. You can click on Building and Remediating Accessible Websites to register for that event.
It will be on our homepage as well later this evening or first thing tomorrow. Thank you all so much for spending your afternoon with us. We hope to see you again in a couple of weeks. Take care.
Jeff Adams
Hey, everybody! We'll give it just a couple of minutes to get us to actually the top of the hour, and then we'll get started. Thank you for being here.
Hello! To everybody coming in. Got a couple of minutes still to the top of the hour, and then we'll get started.
Welcome everyone we saw people streaming in, so we'll give it about another minute, and then we'll get going.
All right. Welcome everyone to the webinar for 5 to do's for your 2025 web accessibility program.
Of course it is just now. February. We've already passed the 1st of the year. But these 5 things. If you're not already thinking about them in your accessibility program.
it's not too late to get started. There's still 11 months in the year. So hopefully, you'll find something here, no matter where you are in your accessibility journey to actually find something good to take from this.
So you do have some controls in your zoom panel. There's a Q&A, but that's up there. So you can definitely put that. Put your questions into the chat and we'll definitely leave some time at the end for questions, and of course you could chat with each other through the chat functionality as well.
So a quick introduction about myself. I'm Jeff Adams. I'm the Vice President of Accessibility operations at UsableNet. I've actually been with the company more than a decade now, and consulting with UsableNets, clients around the world around web accessibility on best practices. And one of my areas of specialty is helping to integrate accessibility into company processes
also lead UsableNets, educational programs to our clients, and also work closely on our webinars as well
outside of UsableNet. I'm also a creative entrepreneur and actually co-wrote the book, content for everyone, a practical guide for creative entrepreneurs to produce usable web content because solo entrepreneurs, creative entrepreneurs are someone we don't talk to a lot about accessibility.
So what are we going to look at today? What are these 5 to do's? So we'll talk briefly about why stalling on accessibility is really no longer an option.
We'll talk about getting started with automated testing. But then we'll talk about getting a fully developed accessibility program in place for your websites and apps.
We'll talk about the importance of creating accessibility, statements and accessibility policies.
and also talk about planning for some ongoing web education as well, or web accessibility, education as well, to make sure that your teams and your organization continues to learn about accessibility.
So 1st of all.
there's no longer really an excuse to be able to be stalling on your accessibility programs.
You know, it's 2025. But we still hear people saying things like we don't have the time resources budget to work on accessibility.
that there are higher priority projects to work on outside of accessibility.
Believe it or not. There are some organizations who say that the site doesn't actually have users who would benefit from doing accessibility work.
We're redesigning soon, and we'll do accessibility, then, is a reason that people are are delaying.
or the site isn't going to be engaging enough if we make it accessible.
or there's always the I don't see, insert anything else into that category of what you don't see other sites doing doing these things. I hear that all the time in my work it's like, well, Amazon's not doing this or Site X isn't doing this. Why do I have to do it?
We need to put all of these aside as kind of the myths and reasons. We don't do this so that we are doing this work web content accessibility guidelines actually hit their 25th anniversary this year. A little later in the year as does UsableNet as a company, even celebrating 25 years. So it's really time to start integrating these practices into what we're doing.
and it creates such an undeed risk as well. If we're not doing the work.
it's a poor customer experience, for between 25 and 50% of your users that 25% number coming from the the percentage. Roughly, the percentage of people in the Us. For example, who have who live with a permanent disability.
That other 25% is actually people who might have a temporary situational or episodic type of disability, something that doesn't, you know, isn't permanent, but lasts for a period of time that might change how they're interacting with websites.
Certainly, if you're doing business globally, there's legislation either that's in place, or that's coming that mandates conformance with those Wcag guidelines thinking about. Certainly the European Union with the European Accessibility Act kicking into place a little later this year in June.
If you're providing digital content to government entities in the Us. Wcag conformance deadlines are in place for April 2026 and April 2027, as part of the Department of Justice's rulemaking last year around Title 2.
And certainly, if you're doing business in the Us. You're subject to a very litigious environment which you heard all about. If you were in the the webinar that was running right before this about the 2024 legal rundown.
So number 2, let's talk about getting started with accessibility, with automation.
Now, I want to be clear here that automation doesn't even begin to cover everything around accessibility. It's only about 25% or so of the web content accessibility, guidelines that could be reliably determined through through an automated scan of some kind. But this is a great place to start
automated website. Testing can immediately provide a list of items that are are that need remediation. It can provide some good initial details on overall accessibility. You know, kind of where you stand, because usually I find when you go move to an audit on a page you're likely to get, you know.
3 x 4 x number of issues that you will from an automated scan. But that automation does kind of. Tell you a little bit of a report card on where you are.
and the automated scan can also be used to support your case for a broader accessibility program showing that you've got these things. Now, you really need to get a handle on the rest of the things you you might be able to have might be able to find
you could already get an autumn, a free page, scan from our aqua platform. If you go to usablenet.com slash, automated dash, accessibility, dash testing, dash tool, or you could find a link to that right on the usablenet.com homepage. It'll let you run a page through our through our aqua platform. Get that report back so you'll even have one page that you can start looking at if you've never done an automated scan before.
So even that single page scan as I was mentioning, can give you some information, it lets you remediate the very critical global header and global footer that across the entire website. So you'll be able to clean those things up from that automated standpoint.
You can also use the information about your homepage to remediate other areas on your website. As you identify common components, you may have a search bar that is consistent. You may have email signups that are consistent, so this can give you the clue to go fix some other things that you know about.
And of course, once you've taken care of those items. You've got increased accessibility on those pages and an improved experience for your entire audience, based on what you have fixed.
But you can't stop with just automation alone. It's important to develop your full accessibility program for all of your websites and apps.
So at minimum. Here's what UsableNet recommends on a yearly basis.
a full audit on each of your websites and apps. Certainly your consumer facing ones, but also think about your business to business ones as well, because you also want to give your business partners and your customers both having a great experience.
We absolutely recommend user testing with members of the disabled community on the major flows for your for each site and app that you've got that way. You're getting feedback from members of the community who are using assistive technologies to make sure that not only are you taking care of, you know Wcag conformance, but you're also delivering a good usability experience as well, because it is possible
to tick all the boxes around a Wcag success criteria, but still have some usability issues that should be addressed for the best user experience possible.
You also want to integrate a testing and reporting platform like UsableNets aqua straight into your processes, so that you have something in place to continue to get testing information.
but that you also get information in terms of reporting that you can use to, you know, share with executives, share with the stakeholders, and be able to cite what you're doing in case anything does come up from that legal perspective as well.
Ongoing monitoring is also crucial, because accessibility is a never ending something that you will be working on as long as you have these sites and apps.
We have an Ada monitoring service that we have that covers 3 elements of testing.
It has a wcag, automated testing. So you're testing those success criteria that can be covered by the automated scan.
It also has some keyboard navigation checks in it to make sure that the keyboard navigation is following a logical sequence.
plus there's testing with somebody who is blind going through the primary path so like, if you were an e-commerce site, for example, you would be going through and having that person test down your purchase path for a product.
And that way you're getting consistent information about if somebody who is who is blind and using a screen reader can get through your website.
And of course, as you're thinking about this, you want to make sure to absolutely check the rest of your digital content as well.
You want to apply accessibility, best practices, for example, to emails and newsletters and your social media accounts.
so that all of your communication with your customers is meeting the standards behind the web content accessibility guidelines
if you're including captions. And if you're doing video rather, or multimedia, you want to make sure you're including captions and descriptions for the videos. So that that information in those videos is available to everyone. And it's important, too, when you're thinking about captions that they're properly edited captions, you can't just rely on automation there to ensure that you're getting proper captions in terms of editing and formatting
similar. If you're if you have any audio programs, those need to have transcripts that are also properly edited.
You need to create accessible Pdfs to make sure that if you're distributing Pdfs for any reason, whether it might be financial information. It could be nutritional information. If you're a restaurant or a food manufacturer, that that information is all available in an accessible format
and the key place of consideration is thinking about accessibility of any 3rd party components that may be on the site. These could be chat bots. They could be review widgets. Maybe cookie policy banners email sign up forms, whatever those are. If you're bringing those into your website.
you do still have a responsibility to those to make sure that they are, in fact accessible, which means you need to be working with your with your partners, who are providing those components to make sure that they're giving you accessible components. And if they're not, you need to, you know, work with them to make sure that they're going to bring them up to meet accessibility standards or potentially going and finding another partner to provide those components to you.
We've seen in several of our in several of our legal reviews that we do
that more and more review widgets in particular, and chat bots are cropping up in these lawsuits as things that are not either integrated into the site accessibly or themselves are inherently not accessible.
Another key bit of documentation you should be having is an accessibility statement and an accessibility policy.
So if we think about the statement first, st
the statement is the public facing document that tells your visitors exactly what you're doing for accessibility. So it tells them, you know that you've put it there that you're you're paying attention to accessibility, that it's something that you're working on and something that you take seriously.
Of course, you need to make sure you're keeping up with the commitment on the accessibility statement and not just putting it up there for performative purposes.
Each website and app that you have should, in fact, have a statement, and it should be available in the footer usually sitting alongside your privacy statement, your terms and conditions somewhere in that area where you keep that kind of information.
And, in fact, in some areas around the Eaa, if you're if you're operating overseas, they have requirements around the accessibility statement. It's not a requirement in the Us. Per se, although we do see it called out within lawsuits. Occasionally, if a if a site doesn't have one.
So you want to make sure. You know that you're meeting your regulations, and in some cases even what might need to be in that statement again, kind of looking at the Eaa, that some of the Member nations do have specific requirements around accessibility statements.
What exactly goes into a statement. Well, this is where you do start to talk about. You know the company that owns the site, you know who that company is, in case, the site name itself doesn't make clear who the owner of the site is.
You want to mention the Wcag level that you're working towards. So you know these days I wouldn't expect to see a statement that lists less than 2.2. There's certainly some out there that are still 2.1, but 2.2 is, of course, where you want to be.
It's important to have contact information on there. And we really recommend to have both a web email address as well as a phone number, so that people can contact you in the way that is best for them.
That is so so important. You know, not everybody wants to do email, not everybody wants to do a phone number.
If you're sending people to a contact form, you want to make sure the contact form itself is as access, a hundred percent accessible. So that you're not, you know, putting some other barrier there to someone trying to call you.
and then you know you. But you will need, of course, to consider other things that you'll need for the individual markets that you're operating in.
And from that customer service point of view, if you have people coming and contacting you about accessibility issues that they're having, it's so key to do 2 2 high level things there. 1st of all, make sure you're getting them the information or helping them complete the task that they came to do, and secondly, make sure that you're in taking as much information about the barriers that they found, so that you're turning around and fixing those and being able to report back to them that you've fixed those issues
that could be very key in helping to head off a lawsuit that could be filed by somebody who's tried to contact you about an issue.
And of course, as I say, that I do have to remind you that I'm not an attorney and not providing any legal advice here, just guidance based on my experience in this space.
so shifting over from the accessibility policy or the accessibility statement rather to the accessibility policy.
So the policy is more of an internally facing document. And it's really designed to do 3 primary things. It informs all of your internal teams on the reasons why the organization is acting on digital accessibility.
It's going to lay out the requirements that need to be follow any reporting processes that are in place accountability plans and communicate other key information around this.
It'll also clarify to those who are involved in the in web accessibility what their role is, and if their current role might change as part of the accessibility initiatives.
So when I talk to clients about working on accessibility policies.
the the key components that I'm kind of looking for inside that are a mission statement which can usually reference back to something that's in the mission statement for the company itself and the and the care that they want to take with their customers.
So, having that mission kind of lays out the the plan there from the beginning.
you want to put in all the digital properties that are currently going to be subject to the policy. And this can really separate because there are some websites you may want to work on first, st and others that you're going to want to work on a little bit later, because you can't probably do everything at once. So, laying those out is key. There
you want to talk about the conformance level that each property is expected to reach and maintain.
So while overall, you're looking to maintain, like 2.2 Aa conformance, you can also talk about what the baseline of accessibility will be for the site.
for example, UsableNet recommends a baseline of having 0 issues that could be determined by an automated scan, but then also taking care of any barriers that are listed in an audit report that are high severity, so things that would be blockers for members of the disabled community. And then from there is that is your baseline. You can look to improve once you've kind of made what that baseline is.
Timelines are also very key here, so that you're outlining to everybody who has the policy. What the timelines are for. You know, site a versus an app versus, you know, 3 other sites that you've got, so that everybody has something to help keep everybody accountable for it.
You'll provide information about the expectations of what the conformance is doing as you're going through remediations, but also the maintenance and overall. You know, keeping of the accessibility status. Once the remediations are done.
you'll list out any organization within the organization like an accessibility center of excellence, perhaps. Who can be, you know, sought to help with any just anything around getting more information about accessibility. What it means to the company who to reach out to if there's questions or anything like that.
and then you could have additional sections, if needed, to help, you know, with any internal information that may need to be communicated through that policy.
And while this is mostly internal facing, it could become externally facing. Because if you do face any type of legal legal action. This can help show what your processes are and what the company is committing to around accessibility.
And then number 5. It's about planning for ongoing web accessibility, education.
As with so many aspects of our professions. You know, there's always continuing education. If you're somebody who's a designer. You're probably taking classes occasionally around the latest in design technology, the latest design preferences, the latest in what's happening in design. Same thing. If you're a developer, you're probably looking at new coding techniques, new languages that may come up different ways to get things done.
and accessibility is no different. You want to stay current on. You know what's being talked about, different ways to do remediation, different ways to integrate processes. There's so much education like what's happening right here today with this webinar and this entire virtual conference that's happening. So it's important to stay up to date on those. I've seen too many organizations rely on the initial trainings that they get around accessibility.
But then, you know, if they're not using it enough, or they don't engage with it, or they don't, you know, try to keep up with things it can kind of, you know.
fall off and even affect how they're actually trying to get through the work. So it really helps to keep your skills fresh and up to date, to be looking at different webinars that are out there, and there's so many free and paid trainings that are happening out there that there's no reason not to try to attend, you know. One or 2 a month in in the areas that interest you, to make sure you are, in fact, staying up to date and keeping your your skill set current there.
UsableNet does a a webinar each month. So you can look to our website. But like I said, there's a lot of options out there for you to explore around that.
and that brings to the end of the top 5 the QA. Area is open. So feel free to put some questions into that space that I can answer for you. You could certainly reach out to me if you want jeffadams@usablenet.com or on Linkedin
at linkedin.com slash in slash. Jeffrey Allen Adams, if you're looking there, there's also an expanded version of this webinar that's available on the UsableNet website that we did back in December along with our Vp of product.
So you could see that for a slightly expanded version of this.
and I do have one question that's come in here.
Do most web developers include some sort of indemnification statement in their terms of service? Is there boilerplate I can find somewhere to include or modify. What do you advise?
So when you're talking about web developers, are you? Are you looking at like those 3rd parties that I referenced like with chat bots and and things like that?
Or are you just? Are we talking about like individual web developers that you may hire to do work through agencies, or just individually, to maybe be a freelancer. If you wanna type that in somewhere I can. I can reference that a little bit but in in broader terms, if you're looking at indemnifications and things in their terms of service
and I'm gonna focus on 3rd parties here, because I suspect that's what you're meaning. Oh, if we build the website for a client, okay, I'll come back. I'll hit that. But I'll talk about 3rd parties first.st
So for 3rd parties, I think it's important to absolutely check their terms of service. And do they have an accessibility statement on their website. That's a first, st a good 1st place, to look to see what their commitment is to accessibility.
And as you're looking to bring on a 3rd party, you know, Widget Chatbot Review item, or whatever you know, flat out, ask them what their conformance level is to the web content, accessibility, guidelines, and what they do to make sure they stay at that conformance level.
You would certainly have the option to. If you are doing any kind of auditing service with somebody like we are often at UsableNet for our partners auditing 3rd parties
To actually be able to go in and re and actually audit those 3rd parties. And then, you know, our partner will go back to the 3rd party to know of, to to work with them, to clean up those issues that may turn up.
Now, the actual question was actually looking at. If if you're building a website for a client.
I have not seen indemnification statements.
I would certainly want you to actually, you know, reach out to an attorney. If you're looking to either be able to review good boilerplate for individual developers or individual agencies to be able to do that. But I think more and more whether they're individual developers doing something or agencies doing this work. They're gonna have to step up and say what they're doing around accessibility. I find often that agencies
we'll say they're doing it, and then we audit something and find out that they didn't really understand what accessibility was. Maybe didn't really understand the web content accessibility guidelines.
So if you are hiring, it's important to make sure that you do the due diligence to know what you're getting.
and I think on the flip side for developers and designers and such. It's important to make sure that you're up to date, and that your skill set is good so that you're delivering that the solid accessibility work. To the client as well.
Good platform for accessibility, wordpress or wix
Personally, I use wordpress for the sites that I do.
I feel that Wordpress definitely thinks about accessibility.
There are. If you're looking at the at taking a pre-made template they actually list in terms of the themes rather which ones have had some accessibility checks done on them by the wordpress team.
So I think that's very helpful. My experience in Wix is much less and wordpress. Actually, too, has wordpress accessibility meetup. So Wordpress tends to take accessibility seriously, and also help tries to do their best to help educate their users on accessibility.
But the key thing to note with accessibility to that, even if the platform itself and the theme that you get is, in fact, accessible. It is possible to disrupt the accessibility by what you customize in it. So it's important to not only choose an accessible platform, but make sure you have the knowledge to put accessible things into it at your building.
Do you know of a scanning tool that will identify if they have accessibility, statements, policies, or 88 widgets.
I don't know of a scanning tool that looks specifically for accessibility statements
or anything of that nature. Or, you know, finding sites that have 88 widgets on them, or something like that. Yeah, I don't know of one that does that
3rd party plugins and conformance. Not sure if you have a specific question around that. But definitely, you know, think about what I mentioned. You know, earlier in the in the session that you're bringing 3rd party Plugins into the site. So you do have a responsibility towards what you're putting on the site.
So it's just really key to make sure you're understanding the vendor. Each of those 3rd party vendors. You know what they're gonna offer you in terms of accessibility what their commitment is to it.
To make sure you're bringing in an accessible component to your website.
If a site is hosting videos on Youtube and not locally do requirements for subtitle apply.
Absolutely. So like, if you're embedding a Youtube on your site, you're responsible for that content. Which could be difficult if you didn't produce the video that you're embedding.
But certainly, if you've produced it and you're embedding it, then you are still on the hook for it. I've seen some things come through in lawsuits where things are embedded on sites, and it's not accessible. So Youtube does make it a little easier with captions as well, because everything you upload there gets automatically captioned. So then you can go back and edit those captions, and then they still flow in the right place on the site. So at least, if you're doing Youtube, it helps.
Let's see. Got about 3 more minutes here. Let me see what we have.
Hmm! I run a small hosting company and have tried to find an attorney to review a policy for us 0 interest and no joy in finding ones that they do not see any money in providing help.
It makes me wonder if you're like working with an attorney who maybe doesn't have accessibility, experience.
cause. Certainly it is a more specialized area in terms of looking at what goes into policies and what goes into public facing accessibility statements.
I do recommend you maybe go back and watch the expanded version of the webinar.
Because we talk a little bit more specifically about some of the things that go into policy, and then you could start essentially writing one for yourself even, and then determining, if it's you know, the one that you want to live by
reading, reading, linking to videos instead of embedding.
I think there's. And again, not an attorney and not providing legal advice. I think if you're just linking to it, that's different. Unless it's your video. If it's a video that you've created that sits under your brand.
you are still responsible to that. But if you're certainly just linking to other to other videos that you're just linking to for reference purposes, there is less of a chance. I think there, that you will be at risk again. It's still
looking to provide the best experience to your customers, but I think there's less risk there. If you're just linking to something else, that is perhaps something you did not do.
Determine. If large 3rd party platforms are accessible.
look for an accessibility statement on their site.
That's a good place to start. And then, if you're looking at working with them, make sure it's part of the questions that you're gonna ask before, you know, you might sign on a dotted line to start working with someone, even if that's a virtual dotted line where you're actually never talking to somebody.
Dig out as much information as you can to make sure you're getting into something that is as accessible as possible.
I think this will be the last one, because we're coming right up on the half hour, Mark, can you say more about the bit you mentioned along the lines of identify X
assets that have to at least pass an automated test.
Any suggestions for the tester tool.
Of course, I'm going to recommend UsableNet aqua. Since I work for usablenet.
I mentioned earlier that you could
get a test, a free page test from our site. I see that Bethany has put in
the link to that. It's UsableNet.com slash, automated dash, accessibility, dash, testing dash tool. So you could see if you like that as a scanning tool. There's an array out there of some free free plugins that are available and more paid versions.
So there's a number of places, you can actually, you know, get some automated testing done so hopefully, you could, you know, run a run a page on our site and and see what you think of that. And and you know, even Google, other automated scan tools to see what's out there depending on. You know the price that you may have to pay for that
alright. I think I will wrap up there. Thank you so much for spending the half hour with me. I hope you found this useful. and have a great rest of the day, and a good week.
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