Webinar: From legal risk to growth for NY businesses

Welcome and Introductions

Sapir: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar, which will be focused on web accessibility and the legal risks that are happening in the U.S., particularly in New York. So, my name is Sapir Yarden, I am part of accessiBe’s marketing department. Yesterday was my four-year anniversary, so hopefully I have enough knowledge to share today with you, and answer some of your questions. And I’m really excited to jump into this topic because it is a really timely and important one.

We’re going to talk about the ADA and web accessibility compliance, and I am joined by my good friend, Kelly, who I am very excited to have here with you. Kelly, would you like to introduce yourself briefly?

Kelley: Yes, good afternoon, everyone. My name is Kelley Simoneaux. I’m a lawyer who’s based in DC, and when I was 16, I was in a car wreck, became paralyzed, and began using a wheelchair. And in that moment, I realized how important it was to, navigate life from a different lens.

And so, since that time, I have placed a strong emphasis on accessibility in both my advocacy and my legal practice, and I’m really glad to be with you all here today to talk about such an important aspect of accessibility, which is the digital landscape and what we can do to create more accessibility while also reducing legal risk.

Sapir: Thanks for sharing that. I’ll also give you credit for something that happened just this past week, I think, where you were recognized as one of DC’s top lawyers.

Kelley: Yes, it’s always good when you’re working hard to get those recognitions, and I’m glad to be able to continue to work for the disability community.

Sapir: Fantastic, and we’re so excited to have you here with us today, and to share your knowledge as well. So, I’m going to briefly cover the agenda and what we’re going to discuss in today’s webinar. First, a broad overview of web accessibility and what it means, particularly if this is your first introduction to the topic. Then we’ll also dive into the Americans with Disabilities Act and the official standards for web accessibility: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG.

And then we’ll cover the cost of litigation – a cost you probably do not want to be paying, and the landscape of New York lawsuits. Over the past year, we also have some insight into what is happening this year.

Finally, we’ll cover the benefits of an accessible website, because with everything that has a risk, we also want to look at the upside, and to tell you all of the wonderful things that your business can do by having an accessible website, and time permitting, we will jump into a demo of the accessWidget solution, which is one of our many solutions for web accessibility. So, I think we’re ready.

What Web Accessibility Means

Sapir: To briefly cover what web accessibility is, it’s basically the practice of ensuring that people with disabilities can effectively perceive, navigate, interact with, and contribute to content on your website. In the same way that your storefront probably doesn’t want to prohibit anyone from entering, neither does your website, and that’s usually your first digital business card or digital footprint into what your business is offering.

So we want to make sure that your website is reachable, accessible, and helpful for everyone who wants to consume the information you’re sharing, the products that you’re selling, and the services that you might have for them. So, when we’re talking about being accessible, we’re talking about the disability community in particular, but also the wider community. When we’re making something accessible, it usually also is accessible for many more people.

If we think about curb cuts, for example, those were generally thought of to be helpful for wheelchair users, but today they also benefit people pushing strollers, carrying luggage, or riding bicycles, among many other uses. And so, when we think about accessibility, consider the idea that a website being usable and accessible for people with disabilities might also mean that it’s usable for a much wider audience. And so that community, based on research from the Valuable 500, was estimated to have about an $8 trillion spending power.

So, not a small community, the disability community represents approximately 27% of the population, according to the CDC, which means that this is the largest minority group across the U.S. So, when we’re thinking about the $8 trillion, that’s a massive spending power, but when we think about the broader community that this impacts, we’re also thinking about $13 trillion when the broader community of friends and family is included. That’s friends, family, the people that they’re sharing with. Because the disability community is very loyal.

When they find a website that works particularly well for them, they’re going to come back to it again and again. They’re going to share that website or that business with their community, and that’s how we’re basically going to be able to drive more awareness to your brand. So, this is also a statement of diversity and inclusion. It’s also about adhering to the guidelines, which Kelly will talk about in a moment, and complying with the different laws and regulations.

There’s the federal law, which is the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as other state and local regulations, which we’ll get into. So Kelly, I’m going to hand it off to you now to cover all of that.

The ADA and Website Accessibility

Kelley: Great. It is important to understand why we do these things. Of course, at a very basic level, we’re looking at web accessibility because it makes good business sense. And it’s really the right thing to do.

But we also have some guidance within our laws and regulations that really make it clear that we’re required to have our websites accessible. So, let’s start at really the foundational and transformative piece of legislation, in terms of accessibility. Back in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law to ensure that people with disabilities have the same rights as everyone else. At the time, our digital footprint looked very different than it does today.

Certainly, the World Wide Web and the way we functioned online looked significantly different, 35 years ago. For that reason, the law did not specifically contemplate what web accessibility should look like. The question I often get is: does the ADA apply to websites? And the simple answer to that is yes.

Back in 2022, after considerable debate about how the ADA applies to web accessibility, the Department of Justice sent out a letter to confirm that, yes, the ADA requirements apply to all goods, services, privileges, and activities offered by public accommodations, and that does include a website. So just as your brick and mortar should have an accessible entrance to get into, so should your website.

It should have that accessible entrance so that people with different disabilities, can also have the same opportunity to view a website as someone who does not need accessibility features. The guidance we have received from the Department of Justice, related to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and what we know will eventually happen is there’s going to be further legislation that really defines web accessibility. We know that because we’ve already seen that. In 2022, the Website and Software Applications Accessibility Act was introduced in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Its purpose, in simple terms, was to affirm that the ADA prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities when using websites, software applications and other digital technologies. So while that particular piece of legislation, was not fully passed and in effect right now, what we anticipate and what we will continue to update on is what that legislation is going to ultimately look like, but still, the basis is it’s going to confirm what we know now, which is that the ADA does require web accessibility.

Understanding WCAG

Kelley: The ADA establishes that a person with a disability should have equal access. But then the question is, well, what does the access look like? That is where WCAG – the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines – comes into play. And it’s actually internationally recognized, not just in the U.S., but the WCAG standards apply even when someone from another country visits a website that was made in the U.S., those standards, those guidelines, would still be at that acceptable level.

Because WCAG has been cited in both court decisions and legislation, it serves as the guiding standard on what web accessibility actually functionally looks like. It was developed by the W3C to define design best practices for web accessibility, and what does that mean? It includes standards that allow a screen reader to interpret a website. It requires keyboard navigation so that someone can move around a website using only their keyboard.

It also is looking at different things, such as making sure the website is seizure-safe, the UI and design, and making sure that the content is digestible for people, at all different levels of comprehension.

Sapir: Kelly, thank you for sharing that, because a lot of times when people think about the web content accessibility guidelines, or what it means to make a website accessible, it can be quite overwhelming. WCAG is an extensive guidebook, and it can be a bit dense to review every single element and to know what standards you need to uphold, and how in-depth you need to go on every single thing. But there are different levels to the WCAG.

There is Level A, which covers the basic requirements; Level AA, which is what courts want us to aspire to, or the standard that we’re expected to meet, and Level AAA requirements, which are basically, like, going above and beyond the compliance expectations.

But if you think about it from a usability perspective, making sure that assistive technologies can navigate the website, so whether that’s a screen reader, just using a keyboard, or any other type of tech that will help you navigate the website, without the website breaking, it can continue to work in the same way as it does for anyone else, that is what we’re hoping to get at.

The Rising Cost of Accessibility Litigation

Kelley: Right. We have discussed why websites need to be accessible and how that accessibility should function in practice. The next question is what happens if a business waits, delays, or does not meet the WCAG AA standard. That brings us to the legal risk.

As a member of the disability community and someone who works in this space, I can tell you that people are starting to care more and more about their ability to be able to have access on the web. It is so important in all of our lives, and how does that translate? Well, sometimes to make those changes, people initiate lawsuits. What we are seeing year over year – as the chart on this slide clearly illustrates – is an increase in lawsuits related to web accessibility.

In 2023, the number of ADA lawsuits and demands reached a new record, rising from 2022. The figure increased again in 2024, and we anticipate another increase in 2025. What that means is every year, there are more of these cases being filed. These actions are also succeeding.

If a website is not accessible, there are significant legal risks. And sometimes when we think about the legal landscape, we’re thinking, like, well, what’s been filed in court? But I want to make clear that the risk starts before there’s a lawsuit. Oftentimes, these risks begin when a business receives a demand letter, where someone is saying, hey, your website’s not accessible, here’s our demand for you to change that, and here is the cost that it’s gonna be, because now we’ve had to get lawyers involved.

And that’s never inexpensive. And so, more than 8,000 businesses received a demand letter each month, and we anticipate that number to be growing a lot as well. And I think that the illustration here is always a really good one, what is visible above the surface versus the much larger volume of activity that remains unseen below it. So, if we’re looking at, there were 4,605 web accessibility lawsuits that were filed.

That’s what we can see. Those have been filed in court, and that’s public, by the way. It’s another reason why you don’t want to get to that place. Your name is publicly out there as not having an accessible website.

But, the reality is there’s many more claims and demand letters that our eyes do not see, because 97% of the cases are settled before going to trial. So this is a very large problem, and we want to avoid that because there are so many great ways and solutions on making websites accessible now that you don’t have to fall in the category of this substantial risk.

Sapir: That reminds me of a conversation that I had with a friend. So, in fact, when I started at accessiBe, which was about four years ago. The percentage of websites that were accessible was around 3%. That figure has now risen to approximately 5%, and part of the reality is websites are being built every single day, but there’s not enough awareness of how to build an accessible website, what to do, what solutions can help.

But when I first joined the company, I remember having a conversation with a friend who works for a very large corporation, and they told me that they receive one of these claims every quarter, and they choose to settle every single time. And I said, well, wouldn’t it just be more affordable and better for your reputation if you actually took care of accessibility from the beginning. So, that point resonates with me when I see that 97% of cases are settled before they even go to trial.

Kelley: Right. Yes. I am a small business owner myself, so I often look at questions through the lens of financial risk. A legal risk ultimately carries a financial cost.

So, the bottom line is, businesses are paying a major price for not addressing accessibility on the front end, and then addressing it retroactively, because the website will still need to be fixed if a claim arises. If you receive a demand letter alleging that your website violates the ADA, you may face attorney’s fees on both sides. That could include $5,000 to $15,000 in fees for the claimant’s attorney, approximately $5,000 for your own lawyer, and remediation and audit costs ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 or even $40,000.

Failing to address accessibility proactively can become very expensive. And that’s a risk you don’t want to take.

Why New York Presents Greater Risk

Kelley: Today, we are focusing on New York for a reason. The reason is that the data shows that New York is the leading state jurisdiction for these filings. If you look at the chart on the screen, you can see it’s not even close. California had more than 200 lawsuits filed in 2024.

Florida is in there. But we’re talking, well over 700, cases filed in 2024 alone in New York. I also want to be clear, when you operate a website, you do not have to be physically located in New York to feel the impact. As long as you’re putting yourself out there to New York consumers, if you are selling to consumers in New York, your case can be filed in New York, and the data shows that it often is.

And so there are a lot of lawsuits being filed in New York on web accessibility issues, and we believe that number is only going to continue to rise.

Sapir: We’ve been doing a lot of activities locally in New York to raise awareness among our web agency partners around small businesses and other local businesses in New York, but like you said, the risk exists for anyone who has a website. A public accommodation is, by definition, intended for the public. And what’s interesting is that we’re seeing new regulations come up globally as well. The European Union’s European Accessibility Act took effect in June, and also, if you’re a U.S. business but selling to Europe, you need to be accessible.

The issue is global, and that’s something that, businesses should be aware of.

Which Businesses Face the Greatest Risk?

Kelley: Very true. Now, let’s look at which types of businesses face the greatest risk. The data shows that types of businesses that do, and the e-commerce businesses face more accessibility-related lawsuits than any other industry. more than 75% of those cases involve e-commerce businesses. That makes sense.

If I want to buy a blouse, require a screen reader, and cannot complete the purchase, the experience is understandably frustrating. I simply wanted to buy the shirt. E-commerce businesses therefore face a higher risk because consumers with disabilities are simply trying to order products like everyone else. When they cannot, it becomes a serious access problem.

Sapir: That goes back to the point about brand loyalty. When a website works, you’re gonna keep coming back to it, and if it doesn’t work for you, you’re probably not gonna visit that business again.

Kelley: That is very true. As a wheelchair user, I return to a coffee shop that I can easily enter and leave, with accessible parking and an accessible entrance, because the experience has been made easy for me.

Sapir: That makes sense.

Checking Your Website’s Accessibility

Sapir: This is a good time to pause and ask: do you know whether your website is accessible and compliant? So, we actually have a solution. You can use your phone to scan the QR code that’s on the screen, or visit accessiBe’s accessScan page, where you can enter your website’s domain. Our AI will scan the website and review it against WCAG, and identify where you are accessible, where you’re performing well, but also where the gaps are, and which communities are most affected.

And I think that’s a really cool thing for you to be able to visualize as well, is it does not simply tell you that something is not working well, but this is the exact communities affected and how they are affected, so that you can then go ahead, prioritize the changes you need to make to your website, and make sure that you’re going to be accessible.

And as we’re getting into the holiday season, and holiday season in New York is something that I love, making sure that your website is accessible ahead of that, so you can maximize the number of customers you serve and the sales you generate, that is also really great and important information. 

The Business Benefits of an Accessible Website

Sapir: In essence, what we wanted to cover today is how an accessible website can help grow your business. So, there are many benefits that we have touched on today, and I’ll go into a little bit more detail on them now. Initially, an accessible website that has the proper markups and information on the code level is going to perform better from an SEO perspective, and also increase organic traffic. There have been several studies that have been conducted around this, and we can share them with you after the recording.

As we’re getting into the age of AI, we’re also seeing that having accessible documentation on your website will help your website perform better in the long term and have more discoverability. Secondly, before the New Year tax season, businesses that make their website accessible may be eligible for a tax credit of up to $5,000. We have a lot of content about this on our website.

It depends on the size of your business and the revenue, but of course, this is something that is available to many, many small businesses, and we encourage you to look into it, as it is another benefit that can give you a return on your accessibility efforts. We talked a couple of times about customer loyalty and reducing churn, so that means making sure that you’re tapping into those customers who do want to purchase from you, and that they can keep coming back to your business.

Because when you delight them with an accessible and usable experience, they’re going to want to return. And lastly, it also means reaching new audiences. So, if you’re able to extend your website to more users, and as we said, the largest minority group in the US, then that also means that you’re going to be able to drive more sales. So, what are brands missing out on by not having an accessible website?

The share of shoppers with disabilities who leave a website because of an inaccessible experience – including cart abandonment – is approximately 28%. So that’s higher than a quarter of your website visitors are leaving because they’re having an inaccessible experience. By contrast, websites that implement an accessibility solution may experience traffic increases of more than 73%.

Regarding customer loyalty, the majority of customers say that social values help shape their shopping choices, and we’re seeing this more and more also with young generations, there’s a lot of data coming out around Gen Z and millennial purchasing habits, and how that’s affecting customer loyalty, and which brands they shop with. And making your website accessible is, in a way, making a statement also about what your brand stands for, which is making sure that everyone can shop at your business.

It also ensures that people can reach your business, learn from it, and use the information it provides. So businesses that are not accessible actually stand to lose about $6.9 billion per year, because people with disabilities might choose to buy elsewhere. And I know that’s a reality with the checkout flows, with product descriptions not being accessible, maybe the content’s not super readable, or the fonts aren’t accessible.

All of those things could impact your website, and are things to be conscientious of when you’re building your website, reviewing your website, and optimizing it for every single user.

Getting Started with accessWidget

Sapir: We definitely encourage you to begin your accessibility and compliance journey. The benefits and risks were outlined in this conversation today. And so, one of the easiest ways to get started, or I guess the simplest way to get started, is to start a trial and install accessWidget. So, I mentioned that’s our AI-powered solution.

It works with any CMS or website builder that’s built on JavaScript. We have installation guides that are on our website, so you can go ahead and check those out, and easily customize the widget, which is the button that appears on your website, to the specific branding and UI that you have on your website. So you don’t need to go ahead with the default options. If you have worked hard to customize your website and convey your brand, we can configure the widget to your branding.

Once installed, accessWidget’s AI will scan and analyze the code elements across the website, and start issuing remediations to make sure that they are accessible within the next 48 hours. After that, it starts doing a daily scan of your website to ensure that any changes that you’re making, if you’re updating new products, if you’re making any changes, if you have promotions, new blogs, any of that content will all be accessible through the remediations that are happening.

Additionally, accessiBe will provide an accessibility statement that explains how accessWidget works, from all of the UI adjustments that happen, all the way to the back-end technology, which is keyboard navigation and the screen reader optimization. So this will help you showcase your compliance efforts, and we always encourage businesses to add that to their websites as well, because it shows that you are taking accessibility seriously and gives customers a way to contact you if they need additional support.

And that’s another way for you to ensure that you have ongoing accessibility, with the daily automated scans, but also you’ll receive a monthly report from us that tells you all of the changes that have been made to your website, so you always are in the know, and you can always reach out to us, and we are available through chat, your account manager, or your customer success representative about how your accessibility efforts are going, and what you can do to continue optimizing your accessibility and compliance journey.

accessWidget Demonstration

Sapir: I think we have a few minutes to do a demo, if that’s okay with everyone. I’ll briefly share my screen. Kelly, can you see my screen? Perfect.

So, this is a sample e-commerce furniture website. We do have accessWidget in the bottom-left corner here of the website. I’ll click on it. Once I open it, that accessibility statement that I mentioned is right there, prominently, so it explains how your website supports accessibility according to the W3C, so the World Wide Web Consortium’s WCAG 2.1 guidelines at the AA level.

You will receive this as a document that you can also add to your website. We have specific profiles here that a user can customize. So, for example, if I scroll down below, I should see a video. So if I actually click on the seizure-safe profile, it’ll stop any motion and affect the colors so that it’s a much safer viewing experience for someone who is prone to seizures, if they have epilepsy or another condition.

Additionally, we have the vision impaired profile, or the low vision profile. This is going to enhance the font and colors on the screen to make sure that it’s a much more accessible viewing experience for those with degrading eyesight. My personal favorite is the ADHD-friendly profile because it’ll help us focus on specific text elements. So if you’re reading a very text-heavy website, this actually is going to help you focus in.

The cognitive disability profile will highlight specific titles and buttons on the page to help you navigate to those elements. And then we have these two features here, the keyboard navigation and screen reader profile, which will optimize with the AI on the backend to make sure that it’s an accessible experience from the code level. In addition, we do have over, I believe, 70 different adjustments in the interface that will help you navigate different elements, so I can have a more readable font, I can magnify the specific text, or change the alignment.

I love the different contrast options, especially if it’s monochrome, or for someone who has a colorblindness, or prefers specific colors for their text and viewing experience, they can make those adjustments. And then, when I mentioned earlier, liking to have the content really focused so that I can specifically focus on a website, I can actually turn the website into read mode, hide all the images, and then I’m just relying on the content itself.

So, these are some of the adjustments that we have here within accessWidget, and as I mentioned before, the website will continue to be scanned daily to help maintain an accessible experience on your website. Returning to the slides, we now have time for questions. Before that, I want to mention that we discussed e-commerce and several emerging AI trends. We are having another webinar October 22nd that will focus on some of the AI trends that are happening.

We invite you to join us there. Both Kelly and I will be there, and it’ll be a really fantastic opportunity to learn more about how you can make your brand more accessible.

Audience Q&A

Sapir: The first question is: will we get a copy of the presentation and recording? So, yes, absolutely, we will be sending this out to everyone, and we’ll make sure that you have the content and any of the resources that were mentioned earlier on the call. Great. Kelly, are there any other questions or anything else you want to share with the audience that might have been missed earlier.

Kelley: Yes. A few questions come up repeatedly, including: does this really apply to me or my business? One of those is whether the size of the website matters when it comes to web accessibility. And I will say that the short answer is no.

There is no exemption when it comes to web accessibility. No company is exempt from maintaining WCAG standards for web accessibility. And in fact, there have been a number of notable cases brought against companies for violations of the ADA on websites of every size. We have seen the biggest of companies down to very small, locally owned stores that present on the internet and don’t have accessibility, and so there is no particular size website or business size to which this applies.

It applies to everyone.

Sapir: Well, a lot of times, also, we get the question of, well, okay, let’s say I have received one of these claims in the past, or I’m going through a claim, what should I do? Or especially if you’re a customer and you receive one of these claims, we do have litigation support, as part of our service.

So, for customers who are paying for a license, they will get the accessibility statement and the monthly reports, but they will also receive other documentation that will help them with these cases, and I believe we have a couple of case studies on the website, especially about New York businesses who were able to remove the threat of litigation, after working with accessiBe.

Kelley: Yes, we’ve touched on this, but I do think people are often like, hey, I’ve got a lot going on. I do not know if this is the right time for me. Maybe if something does come up, then I can reach out and address it then. I have to say that this is not a situation where you should take that chance.

Even if you remediate your site after you get a demand letter, you may still be susceptible to paying attorney’s fees. Ultimately, you still need to make the website accessible, and it is going to cost more once you reach that point. Finally, I would just go back to the point that this is the right thing to do. The right time to do the right thing is now.

The disability community is a large community, and any one of us can become a member of it at any point. We may age into disability or acquire one at any time. And so, wanting more people to have the ability to access your business, I think makes a lot of business sense. But as business owners, we’re juggling so many things, I would never suggest taking that chance, because it’s gonna ultimately be more headache, more of your time to navigate that legal process, and more money.

Sapir: Absolutely. And we have another question from the audience that is actually a fantastic question. Gregory asks, large companies like Google don’t use widgets in their UI of their webpage, so is it really necessary for us to use a widget, or are there other ways to implement accessibility with accessiBe? So, I’ll start off by saying that accessiBe is not just a one-product company.

We do have a few different solutions for web accessibility, but on that same front, different businesses have different solutions for accessibility as well. And so, companies like Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, those large companies have in-house accessibility teams dedicated to reviewing every element of the website and ensuring that everything from A to Z is going to be accessible for every single user.

And they’re still open to claims, but a lot of it is also about the documentation that you have, and the reviews that you do, and how much you’re involved in the website’s accessibility. So, Kelly, is there anything that you want to add to that?

Kelley: No, I think, there’s certainly different ways to approach web accessibility. The main thing is not to make the process so complicated that you cannot achieve the goal of having an accessible website. As a small business owner who is not tech-savvy, I have had to choose a solution that is easy for me to implement. Using accessiBe provides that, so that I know that it’s taken care of, and I can turn it over.

But again, it all comes down to what those risks are of not looking at it, of not addressing it, not saying, I’m big enough of a company to deal with it, or I don’t have a team. There are a lot of solutions meant to help address it for any size company, and I think that eliminating the risk, knowing that the risk is there, and it’s growing, is a good business choice.

Sapir: So you can always get started with the scan, which I will put in the chat, accessScan, and scan your website. We also do offer audits led by accessibility experts, so you can do that for your website, and make sure that you receive all of the code elements and the remediations that might be necessary, but on that front, you would need to implement those changes on your own. whereas accessWidget is AI-powered.

We also have a newer solution called accessFlow, and this is mainly for developers to be able to implement accessibility at the code level from their dashboards. So, we do have different solutions, we’re happy to talk to you about those. Feel free to reach out after the recording is sent out. We are very happy that you joined us today to learn more about web accessibility and what it means for your business, what it means for New York businesses, and just thank you so much, Kelly, for being part of this.

Kelley: Yes, great as always to join you. Thanks so much.

Sapir: Awesome. Have a good day, everyone.