by Recognizing that website design can create barriers to doing business online for people with disabilities as much as physical barriers can create limitations in entering a business, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has recently issued website accessibility guidance for businesses. (https://beta.ada.gov/web-guidance/)
The DOJ is the federal agency that enforces the part of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that covers disability discrimination and public accommodations. Title III of the ADA prohibits disability discrimination by businesses open to the public (‘public accommodations’). The law requires that businesses open to the public provide full and equal enjoyment of their goods and services to people with disabilities in all the ways the business offers its goods and services. To meet the requirements of the ADA, businesses may need to adjust their websites in order to communicate with individuals with disabilities effectively.
When a company does business with the public on the internet, its website is considered a public accommodation. It needs to remove barriers to access for individuals with disabilities. Examples of how a business may create accessibility barriers :
- Poor color contrast can bar people with limited vision or color blindness from reading text if there is not enough contrast between the text and background.
- When a website uses color alone to give information, people who are color blind may not be able to get the information because they cannot distinguish some colors from others. If a form on the website identifies the sections to be completed by color alone, a blind person may not be able to use the form. In addition, screen readers used by people who are blind may not tell the user the color of the instructional text.
- When a website uses images without text alternatives, people who are blind will not be able to understand the content being conveyed.
- When a website provides videos without captions, people with hearing disabilities may not be able to understand the information in the video.
- Mouse-only navigation will make the website inaccessible to people with disabilities who cannot use a mouse.
In the new guidance issued on March 22, 2022, the DOJ notes that businesses can choose how they will design websites to ensure that the programs, services, and goods they provide are accessible to people with disabilities. The DOJ directs businesses to the following resources for ideas on how to effectively make their websites accessible:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/) were developed with the goal of providing a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments internationally.
Section 508.gov (https://www.section508.gov) is a tool the federal government uses to design its own websites to assure accessibility. It includes specifics on software and hardware to improve communication for people with various disabilities.
Digital.gov (https://digital.gov/topics/accessibility/) identifies resources, including toolkits, for designing products, devices, services, and web environments for people with disabilities
