Web Accessibility and Achievable Accountability
Congressional lawmakers are trying to come up with an appropriate approach to implementing new ADA Standards as it applies to websites with the Online Accessibility Act (H.R.8478). Unfortunately, they are using the same paradigm and language that has led to a number of problems, a number of excuses and a lack of solutions regarding web accessibility compliance particularly for ADA Title III organizations (commercial companies mostly). It is long overdue that a standard of accountability that is tangible and measurable be agreed upon, and what better time than now after years of digital consolidation has been shoved into months thanks to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Every critical and convenient service has or is lined up to be engulfed by the digital world and persons with disabilities need access now more than ever.
The common question I get from people asking about ADA standards is, “what is reasonable accommodation?” Many of these prospects, partners and clients understandably have an issue with the subjective nature of the term. In the Online Accessibility Act, a new term is proposed that is just as subjective… “substantial compliance.” It is “floating” and has no baseline to measure against besides the relative substantial compliance of websites and applications against one another. In the financial world, this might work with the 180 currencies recognized by the United Nations but how the heck can it work with approximately 2 billion websites in all their varieties against one another? Quite simply, it cannot. There are too many interacting variables with these 2 billion websites and technologies that interact with them regarding web accessibility that will lead to endless, circular and lawyerly arguments. We cannot make progress with such subjectivity.
Congress needs to shift the paradigm of their thinking. We have to agree upon gold ADA standards (or fixed standards) of web accessibility, and of course we should start with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. But even there, we need to negotiate some specifics — browser and screen-reader guidelines as an example. Ideally, this agreed upon baseline, which could look something like WCAG 2.0 AA, would start us down the right path. Only then could we apply specific automated and manual ways of measuring against it and enable achievable accountability. This in turn would lift the confusion that currently exists and really push the online world to a much more accessible posture to the benefit of all of society.
