ADA Compliance

Meeting the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements for equal access to digital services.

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Accessibility

The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) prohibits discrimination based on disability in public accommodations (Title III) and state/local government services (Title II). While the ADA predates the web, courts have increasingly interpreted 'places of public accommodation' to include websites. In 2024, the DOJ published a final rule under Title II requiring state and local government websites to meet WCAG 2.1 AA. For private businesses (Title III), no formal rule exists yet, but settlement agreements and court precedents consistently reference WCAG 2.1 AA. ADA web accessibility lawsuits exceeded 4,000 in 2023, making compliance a significant legal risk. The landmark cases include Robles v. Domino's Pizza (2019) and Gil v. Winn-Dixie.

Why It Matters

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), enacted in 1990, prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, and courts have increasingly interpreted this to include websites and digital services operated by businesses open to the public. ADA-related digital accessibility lawsuits have surged — with thousands filed annually in the United States — making compliance not just an ethical imperative but a concrete legal and financial risk for any organization with a digital presence. Beyond litigation avoidance, ADA-aligned accessibility improvements benefit all users through clearer navigation, better content structure, and more robust interfaces.

Real-World Examples

Domino's Pizza ADA lawsuit

In Robles v. Domino's Pizza, a blind user sued because the website and mobile app were incompatible with screen reader software, preventing him from ordering food online. The case reached the Supreme Court, which declined to hear Domino's appeal, effectively affirming that ADA Title III applies to websites and mobile apps of public-facing businesses. The ruling sent a clear signal to every digital business in the United States that web accessibility is a legal obligation, not a voluntary best practice.

Target.com class action settlement

The National Federation of the Blind filed a class action lawsuit against Target after its website was found to be inaccessible to screen reader users, lacking alt text on images and having forms that could not be completed without a mouse. Target settled for $6 million, agreed to make its website WCAG 2.0 AA compliant, and retained an accessibility consultant for ongoing monitoring. The case established an early and widely cited precedent that retail websites fall under ADA public accommodation requirements.

Counter-example

Adding an accessibility overlay widget instead of fixing code

A company facing an ADA demand letter installs a third-party accessibility overlay plugin that promises one-click compliance through automated DOM manipulation rather than investing in actual remediation of its underlying code. The overlay fails to fix structural issues — missing form labels, broken focus management, and inaccessible custom widgets — and multiple lawsuits have specifically named overlay-dependent sites as non-compliant. The company spends more on the overlay subscription and subsequent legal fees than the proper remediation would have cost.

Role-Specific Guidance

Common Mistakes

• The most pervasive mistake is treating ADA compliance as a one-time project rather than an ongoing process — accessibility must be maintained with every release, content update, and third-party integration, not just fixed once and forgotten. Another common error is relying solely on automated scanning tools, which miss the majority of real-world accessibility barriers like illogical tab order, missing context for screen readers, and unusable custom components. Organizations also make the mistake of purchasing overlay widgets as a compliance shortcut; these products do not deliver meaningful accessibility and have been explicitly challenged in court as insufficient.