WCAG-Why This Acronym Could Cost You Thousands!
WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are the roadmap for ensuring easy access to the internet for those with disabilities, including accommodations for blindness, deafness, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these, as well as accommodation for learning disabilities and cognitive limitations.
While these guidelines are not intended to cover every possible impairment, it does aim to create a friendly to use and robust website experience for those with disabilities. The WCAG 2.1 guidelines pertain to all desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices and hopes to create an accessible web environment for all users.
This is all well and good, but you must be anxious to learn why this could cost you thousands of dollars, am I right? We’ll get there… First, let’s cover some basics to get you familiar with how this affects you.
Who needs to use these guidelines?
Web designers and content developers, policy makers, purchasing agents, teachers, small business owners, corporate and government compliance officers, and yes, even students. Just about anyone with an online presence, selling services, products, or providing information to the general public is included. The guidelines and Success Criteria are organized around the following four principles, which lay the groundwork needed for anyone to access and use web content. Websites must have content that is:
- Perceivable - Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive. This means that users must be able to perceive the information being presented (it can't be invisible to all of their senses)
- Operable - User interface components and navigation must be operable. This means that users must be able to operate the interface (the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform)
- Understandable - Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable. This means that users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface (the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding)
- Robust - Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. This means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance, and as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should always remain accessible. ( Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, 2015)
Let’s make this clear, all websites have a responsibility to create equal access for those with disabilities, just like department stores and movie theaters must have ramps or special elevators for individuals who use a wheelchair, or how TV programs offer closed captioned service for the hearing impaired. Websites must now create the same accessibility considerations for persons with a disability or impairment.
So why the fearful title?
Why would this guideline cost you thousands of dollars? No, I’m not fear mongering but I am seeing a trend with a few legal firms around the country. Here’s what happens…
A legal firm will work with someone who has a disability and that person will visit various websites on their own. If they discover that the website is not WCAG 2.1 compliant, they contact an attorney who then will draft a demand letter to the owner of the website. This demand serves as legal notice of a complaint against the website with the intention to sue in court. The letter goes on to offer an immediate settlement of the complaint which includes damages and attorney fees. This process is repeated over and over to unsuspecting website owners. These fees can easily exceed a few thousand dollars in damages and legal costs.
Going to trial and litigating a case is expensive, you have to hire a lawyer and win or lose, you will have some large bills to pay. The system is being played to catch as many business owners as possible, producing a steady stream of revenues for the legal firm. The intent of the guidelines are noble but, the legal firms seem to be using them as a way to make a quick buck. In my opinion, this is somewhat predatory and unethical, but they are within their legal rights to demand payment on behalf of their client, the website user, who discovered the non-compliance and is technically, excluded from full use of the website.
How to protect yourself.
You can take some time to review the guidelines as explained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which is an international community working to develop web standards. (The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), 2018)
If you’re the owner, take time to evaluate, understand, and correct issues with your website. I recommend two websites to help identify issues, the Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool and AChecker Accessibility Website. Some are free, but most have a cost associated for their service and for good reason. When it comes to your business and a potential litigation, you want to ensure your website is updated quickly and properly.
For the average small business, this is extraordinarily time consuming, highly technical, and difficult to correct properly since most websites have hundreds of lines of code.
The fastest way to ensure your website is following the W3C guidelines is to hire a professional web developer or, give the task to your company website admin. This solution will cost some money but it’s better to spend a few hundred dollars now than to forcibly pay thousands of dollars in legal damages and attorney fees, later.
Conclusion
I know what you’re thinking… “more money, more time, more headache.”
Think of it like this, we are just now starting to advance our economic and social infrastructure online so, it’s only fair that we help include those with disabilities. It’s a good thing overall, everyone will find it easier to use websites and locate the service or information they are looking for.
This post is not about the pain and cost of updating your website. This is a warning that lawyers have identified a new area of legal regulation which, the majority of small businesses are not implementing because they are not aware. Additionally, they do not have the staff or resources to keep pace with the speed of advancing technology.
Luckily, web designers continually advance their skill in converting website traffic. Designers are always looking for the next big tool or innovation to help increase conversions of shoppers into customers.
It is obvious that W3C needs to come up with a better method of educating the public and website owners about the new guidelines. Hopefully, W3C will implement a solution to educate and help update those outdated websites.
If you would like to learn more about WCAG 2.1, we’ve included a few resources here. You can click here to for an informative video or read more on WCAG 2.1 .
If you want to get your website up to WCAG guidelines ASAP, feel free to contact Goldenview Consulting and Web Design at (305) 879-8509 or send an email to [email protected] and we will be happy to evaluate your website free of charge.
Works Cited
Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. (2015, July 25). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. Retrieved from World Wide Web Consortium: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#background-on-wcag-2
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). (2018, July 25). About W3C. Retrieved from World Wide Web Consortium: https://www.w3.org/Consortium/