Re: Your ADA Lawsuit

And what you can do about it!

Jordan West
July 02, 2024

Is there a worse subject line for a brand owner to wake up to? (or any owner at that)

Unfortunately, these frivolous lawsuits have been happening to a lot of us brand owners and they don’t seem to be slowing down…

If you haven’t been hit with one… you probably know someone who has!

So what do you do? (this is not legal advice - I am only sharing some info that may help - if you’re in this situation please contact a lawyer)

On a recent “What’s working in DTC Call” I brought on Harrison Brown a lawyer who specializes in these types of cases.

He shared some great resources that I wanted to share with you all today!

Here are the eight ways that he talked about to avoid a case in the first place…

Use Alt Text for Images: Ensure every image on your website has descriptive alt text. This helps screen readers describe the images to visually impaired users and is also good for SEO.
Closed Captioning for Videos: Add closed captions to all videos on your site to make them accessible to deaf or hard-of-hearing users.
Proper Coding for Screen Readers: Ensure your website's menus and other elements are properly coded to work seamlessly with screen readers like JAWS.
Color Contrast: Maintain sufficient color contrast on your website to help users with visual impairments distinguish text from the background.
Accessibility Statement: Include an accessibility statement on your website. While not legally required, it shows your commitment to accessibility and can deter potential lawsuits.
Regular Audits: Conduct regular audits of your website using reputable tools and services to ensure ongoing compliance with accessibility standards.
Human Audits: In addition to automated tools, have visually impaired or other disabled individuals manually check your site to catch issues that automated systems might miss.
Update Privacy Policies: Regularly update your privacy policy and terms of service to clearly outline your practices, especially regarding data collection and user tracking. Make sure users explicitly agree to these terms.

He also shared a cheat sheet that I want to share with you guys with everything you need to know about these lawsuits.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uxulXXougK0s9Cb9RAWT9nu95mxu_dV1/view

And here are a few recommendations that Harrison made

His bio with my contact info is linked at the bottom.

ADA Site Compliance. This consultant performs good quality work at reasonable prices. Its practice is to use human auditing of a website, rather than only using an automated tool or software, and human auditing is far more thorough and effective. They have different levels of website “audits” ranging in price depending on the amount of pages/content on the website. Our contact at ADA Site Compliance is Jeremy Horelick. Jeremy can be reached at (561) 258-9518 or [email protected].

Usablenet. This vendor is very active in this space, publishes a lot of articles on the subject, and is well-regarded. I have met with one of its principals and was impressed by his knowledge, experience and practical approach. Its website is: https://usablenet.com/. Our primary contact at this vendor is Kurtis Mirigliani who can be reached at (570) 709-2794 or [email protected]. Usablenet has added a built-in screen reader to its testing platform, and once it remediates your website it continues to monitor it to make sure it remains in compliance (to the extent you are adding any new information to the website).

And here is Harrison's info in case anyone needs help or wants to ask questions!