Skip to main content

Digital accessibility lawsuits increased by 23% in 2020

This year, a large number of businesses added new stores, websites, and digital content to serve their customers, but accessibility initiatives did not keep up. In 2020 the number of digital accessibility lawsuits increased by 23%, amounting to almost 10 lawsuits everyday, according to a new report from UsableNet, a digital accessibility company.

In addition to the influx of new digital spaces that could have accessibility issues, plaintiff firms have gotten more efficient at building and filing claims. 

Over the course of 2020, there was a slowdown in the number of cases being filed when lockdowns first started happening in March and April. They then started picking back up again over the next months, rising over 50% from March to the end of the year. 

RELATED CONTENT: Accessibility in software development

When it comes to who is targeted most in these lawsuits, retailers have it the worst. 77.55% of accessibility lawsuits were associated with retail businesses. Food service had 7.77% of lawsuits, education had 2.45%, and another 3.38% were grouped into an “other” category. All other industries had two percent of lawsuits or less. “In 2020, thousands of retailers have websites and apps. Those websites are complicated. For retailers, web and app content changes happen often. At the same time, web teams have limited resources,” Jason Taylor, chief innovation strategist at UsableNet, wrote in a blog post explaining the report’s results. 

There were also a number of repeat lawsuits this year, indicating that even when businesses are reported for accessibility issues, they might still not invest in fixing those issues. Over 20% of the lawsuits this year were for companies that already have been sued in the past two years. 

In 2020, 3235 claims were for desktop websites, 296 were for mobile apps, 150 were for video accessibility, 16 were for a combination of web and app, and 3 were for mobile websites. “The type of digital experiences listed in ADA claims are starting to get broader. Video accessibility appeared in digital accessibility lawsuits more often in 2020. It’s easy to argue that missing closed captions or audio descriptions violate the ADA,” Taylor wrote. 

In addition, widgets and overlays that are being used to eliminate or reduce accessibility issues don’t always protect companies. According to the report, over 250 claims were filed against companies using such a solution. 

The post Digital accessibility lawsuits increased by 23% in 2020 appeared first on SD Times.



from SD Times https://ift.tt/38zwvOX
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Difference between Web Designer and Web Developer Neeraj Mishra The Crazy Programmer

Have you ever wondered about the distinctions between web developers’ and web designers’ duties and obligations? You’re not alone! Many people have trouble distinguishing between these two. Although they collaborate to publish new websites on the internet, web developers and web designers play very different roles. To put these job possibilities into perspective, consider the construction of a house. To create a vision for the house, including the visual components, the space planning and layout, the materials, and the overall appearance and sense of the space, you need an architect. That said, to translate an idea into a building, you need construction professionals to take those architectural drawings and put them into practice. Image Source In a similar vein, web development and design work together to create websites. Let’s examine the major responsibilities and distinctions between web developers and web designers. Let’s get going, shall we? What Does a Web Designer Do?
Post a Comment
Read more

A guide to data integration tools

CData Software is a leader in data access and connectivity solutions. It specializes in the development of data drivers and data access technologies for real-time access to online or on-premise applications, databases and web APIs. The company is focused on bringing data connectivity capabilities natively into tools organizations already use. It also features ETL/ELT solutions, enterprise connectors, and data visualization. Matillion ’s data transformation software empowers customers to extract data from a wide number of sources, load it into their chosen cloud data warehouse (CDW) and transform that data from its siloed source state, into analytics-ready insights – prepared for advanced analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence use cases. Only Matillion is purpose-built for Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, and Microsoft Azure, enabling businesses to achieve new levels of simplicity, speed, scale, and savings. Trusted by companies of all sizes to meet
Post a Comment
Read more

2022: The year of hybrid work

Remote work was once considered a luxury to many, but in 2020, it became a necessity for a large portion of the workforce, as the scary and unknown COVID-19 virus sickened and even took the lives of so many people around the world.  Some workers were able to thrive in a remote setting, while others felt isolated and struggled to keep up a balance between their work and home lives. Last year saw the availability of life-saving vaccines, so companies were able to start having the conversation about what to do next. Should they keep everyone remote? Should they go back to working in the office full time? Or should they do something in between? Enter hybrid work, which offers a mix of the two. A Fall 2021 study conducted by Google revealed that over 75% of survey respondents expect hybrid work to become a standard practice within their organization within the next three years.  Thus, two years after the world abruptly shifted to widespread adoption of remote work, we are declaring 20
Post a Comment
Read more