Companies are being sued for thousands of dollars

Companies are being sued for thousands of dollars because their websites are not accessible for  people with disabilities. Astuto Technologies, LLC wants to help its clients to make sure their websites are accessible to all.

Nearly 1,600 similar suits filed in New York last year come from primarily the same 15 law firms. Some of the suits have been resolved quickly with cash settlements in the $10,000.00 to 25,000.00 range.

Minh Vu, a Seyfarth Shaw partner in Washington, D.C. “There were a number of pro-plaintiff court rulings in accessibility cases in 2018 and 2019, which have further fueled the lawsuit craze.”

The main issue is whether the plaintiff is able to access the goods and services that are offered on a website, she says.
 
Suits have claimed that, for instance, a blind or deaf person could not access information on a website because the sites aren’t compatible with assistive technology such as software that reads text aloud. The lawsuits are based on an interpretation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires that the goods and services of public accommodations be accessible to disabled people, says Vu.

Long-awaited Department of Justice regulations governing website accessibility have been tabled, leaving companies with no clear legal guidance about what’s required of them, she says. There are voluntary guidelines issued by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that companies can follow, and that’s what Astuto Technologies LLC references when upgrading client sites.

Web companies generally charge on average between $5,000 and $25,000 to upgrade a site to conform with web accessibility standards, depending on the site’s size and complexity.

Some of the features added to make a site more accessible include adding alternate text in images, which will help assistive screen-reader technologies to read aloud the image description; adding text inside links; and changing text and background colors in order to make it visible to those with colorblindness.

“It is recommended that companies get ahead of the issue before they’re sued,”

“Compliance can typically be achieved by website upgrades and testing software…so it makes sense for companies to have their websites reviewed before it’s too late.”

Moving forward, Astuto Technologies LLC hopes to educate companies on website accessibility.

“With technology you have to stay ahead,”  Like - George Westerman saids, MIT Proffesor, 2017

"Successful digital transformation is like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. It’s still the same organism, but it now has superpowers. Unfortunately, when it comes to digital transformation, many senior execs aren’t thinking about butterflies. They’re just thinking about fast caterpillars…