accessibility decay

A new class action lawsuit targeting a major overlay vendor raises liability risks and opportunities for agencies and their clients. The final (hopefully) post in our series on developer liability.

When customers expect accessibility, it pays to be precise and prepared so that you set the right expectations and meet them.

California's new accessibility bill AB1757 may shift liability for inaccessible sites to developers, agencies and other providers. Is this cause for fear? Or a great opportunity for agencies that can do the work?

Accessibility is similar to security, SEO, and other such areas that require some routine maintenance and vigilance. In other words, your level of accessibility can decay without some discipline to maintain it at the required level.

When you work in digital accessibility, you hear a lot of things from customers, designers, developers, and agencies that just aren’t correct. Most are genuine misconceptions, but that doesn’t mean they’re harmless. At best, organizations can end up overspending on accessibility. But they also let organizations psych themselves out of pursuing greater accessibility out of fear that it will be too expensive or too difficult. And at worst, orgs might think they are accessibility conformant but are actually increasing their legal risk while missing out on the business benefits of digital accessibility.