Just two days ago, I officially published The ADA Book (Updated and revised on October 1, 2019).
There is nothing like this book available in the marketplace.
The ADA Book gives you a step-by-step blueprint of the best way to approach making a website accessible. The chronological order in which you approach web accessibility is crucial, it can be the difference between receiving a demand letter and not.
The order I provide recommend is based on court rulings and the charged violations contained within demand letters and lawsuits.
This information is extremely valuable. It will enable you to have a cloak of accessibility (to thwart plaintiff’s law firms) while you bring your website up to date, mostly following WCAG 2.0 AA.
As you read through the steps outlined, you’ll be able to formulate a plan on how best to approach website compliance. But, as you’ll read, I advise an aggressive attack vs. strategizing; the strategy is reading the book and then you run with the information and make your website accessible.
Here is a preview:
Legal Overview
Inside the book, I summarize the legal landscape. I think it’s important for context, so readers can understand exactly how we’ve arrived at a code red in and what exactly the different terminology means. Let’s talk about this briefly.
ADA refers to The Americans With Disabilities Act and, as decided by the DOJ and courts, Title III of the ADA is what mandates that websites be ADA compliant.
What does ADA Website Compliance mean?
It means everyone, including persons with disabilities, has equal and full use and enjoyment of your website.
How do you make your website accessible?
The de facto standard used by US courts and the DOJ is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Success Level AA which is compromised of 38 success criteria or bullet points for making your website accessible.
Key point: WCAG is not the law but it is something courts continually reference when determining whether a website is accessible.
Many legal authorities (Assistant Attorney General, Section508.gov, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) have stated that you have flexibility in how you make your website accessible so the above standards aren’t the law, just guides.
WCAG 2.0 Summary and Detailed Outline
Well how exactly do you make a website accessible?
My WCAG 2.0 AA Guide is a great start to understanding what you need to do.
In the ADA book, I expound upon this outline and explain each WCAG 2.0 AA success criterion in plain, simple English so that anyone can understand what it is asking for.
Blueprint: Where do you start?
The most important part of The ADA Book is where I detail exactly how to approach website accessibility. There is a lot of legal best practices embedded within this section because this is all about not getting sued, reducing your risk of seeing a demand letter in your mailbox.
Exactly no one wants to get sued and in the blueprint section is where I strategize for what I would do with a general website.
This information is going to have applicability for any type of entity: corporations, banks, credit unions, mom and pop shops, small businesses, hotels, non-profits, churches, universities, financial and investment institutions, restaurants, etc.
I don’t think I can emphasize enough how important the next steps you take are. How you approach accessibility makes all the difference between getting sued and not.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Another section full of gold information is the FAQ section where I answer common questions I have seen in forums and discussions on the web. I’ve searched Quora, Reddit, and keyword research tools to find the pressing questions people want to know.
- What are the most frequently cited complaints in lawsuits?
- Do all websites need to be ADA compliant?
- Does it matter if I don’t have 15 employees?
- What about WCAG 2.1 (just released in June of 2018)?
- How much is a typical settlement?
- Are plaintiff’s law firms just going after deep pockets?
- What industries are they targeting the most?
and several more questions are answered.
The ADA Book (released February 2019 and last updated in October 2019) is going to guide you through the best way to become accessible so that you hopefully never have to hire an attorney to represent you. It’s written by an attorney and accessibility consultant (me), gets right to the point, and contains really, really good information – the best information in the world.
You can buy the book at https://adabook.com.