Web Accessibility

By Lagarde
July 24, 2022

According to the CDC, 26% of adults in the United States have a disability and approximately 6.5 million people in the United States have an intellectual disability. A 2019 report by the National Center for Education Statistics determined that 21% of American adults fall into the "low level English literacy" category including 4.1% who are "functionally illiterate." And the Pew Research Center found that 13.7% of the U.S. population were immigrants in 2020, nearly a three-fold increase since 1970.

These statistics make a compelling argument for web accessibility as well as web content that's written in plain language.

What Makes a Website Accessible?

Accessible websites are structured in a way that allows assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to navigate seamlessly and interact with both functional and aesthetic elements on a web page. Users without screen readers should be able to nagigate websites using the tab button on a keyboard (as opposed to using a mouse). Additionally, web page text should generally have a sufficient color contrast ratio to stand out from background colors and fonts should be legible. These are just a few examples of what makes a website accessible, but are often the biggest reasons why websites are deemed inaccessible.

Web content is another important extension of web accessibility; the purpose of the Plain Writing Act is to make government information more accessible to a broad public audience, regardless of reading level or English language proficiency. Signed into law more than a decade ago (Oct. 13, 2010, to be exact), the Plain Writing Act requires federal agencies to write public-facing content and documents in a way that the public can understand and use. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) expanded on this, stating that plain writing also "avoids jargon, redundancy, ambiguity, and obscurity."

Content that's too verbose can cause end users to waste time finding the information they need. This is inconsiderate to end users of all reading levels.

Accessibility is the Law

Many countries have passed laws prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities in all areas of public life, including work, school, and transportation. Examples include the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 in the United States, the European Accessibility Act and EN 301 549 web directive in Europe, and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) in Canada. These laws require that digital content be accessible to individuals with disabilities, and often include specific penalties for non-compliance.

The international lawfirm Seyfarth Shaw has tracked the number of lawsuits filed under the ADA each year since 2013. Their data show that more than 11,400 people filed an ADA Title III lawsuit in 2021—a 4% increase from 2020 and a 320% increase since 2013. In 2020 alone, more than 2,500 of the Title III ADA lawsuits filed in federal courts claimed that websites were inaccessible to people with disabilities. Seyfarth Shaw hasn't finalized the data from 2021 but said that many law firms filed dozens, if not hundreds, of web accessibility lawsuits.

The Gold Standard for Compliance

The private international World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and 2.1 Level AA, which have emerged as the benchmark for web accessibility standards. Federal agencies have adopted the WCAG, which is a legal requirement under some federal laws such as Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Some courts refer to the WCAG 2.0 Level AA as the accessibility standard for compliance when granting injunctive relief under the ADA.