Law firms are aggressively pursuing businesses that lack a minimum level of website accessibility. The past several years has seen a consistent and significant increase in demand letters and lawsuits focusing on a website’s compliance with Title III of the American’s with Disabilities Act.
The Wall Street Journal reported that in 2014 Title III lawsuits had increased by 55% from the prior year, and in 2015 the U.S Department of Justice who enforces Title III has seen a 40% increase of claims from 2014. This past year, 2016, already hit a newsworthy figure with the number of lawsuits filed in federal court which is up 63% from the 2014 mid-year number.
Specialized law firms at the center of this litigation appear to use automated testing suites to assess the vulnerability of websites. The rate of failure determines the attractiveness for settlement demands and ultimately, litigation.
To address this, Imaginary Landscape has created a special Website Remediation Program specifically designed to reduce or eliminate the structural issues that cause most websites to fail accessibility testing.
The first step of Imaginary’s Website Remediation Program is to immediately identify and correct the issues that cause automated testing to fail. Depending on the complexity and age of the website, this can be done in a matter of days.
Once the litigation exposure is minimized, Imaginary’s second step is to conduct a usability test of your website with disabled users. This research-based process yields deeper and more substantial recommendations that further improve the actual day-to-day interactions of disabled audiences with your website.
“Lawyers are taking advantage of this window of opportunity when businesses don’t have ADA website compliance on their mind,” said Brian Moloney, President and CEO of Imaginary Landscape. “I’ve seen the surge in costly lawsuits aimed at small and midsized businesses. The Remediation Program is designed to save our clients the headache and financial burden by hitting this issue head-on.”
For more information about Imaginary’s Website Remediation Program, contact Imaginary Landscape at (877) 275-9144.