US Accessibility Laws: What You Need to Know to Protect Your Business

US Accessibility Laws: What You Need to Know to Protect Your Business

Held On: Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Length: 1.5 hours
Speaker: Ken Nakata, Director, Accessibility Consulting Practice, Cryptzone
Target Audience: Anyone who needs to understand the laws impacting website design for persons with disabilities and the standards that should be met.
Skill Level: Beginner

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Overview: Your company’s website is a vital way to keep in touch with your customers, but it can also get your company in trouble if it isn’t designed correctly. Around the country, plaintiff’s lawyers are suing private companies, educational institutions, and government agencies for having websites that are inaccessible to people with disabilities. Civil rights laws like the ADA require that businesses offer people with disabilities with the same access to content and information as everyone else — and failing to do so can result in serious fines and penalties. This webinar will arm participants with the information they need to avoid liability and prepare for the future. It will provide a high level overview of the standard, called Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 AA, that should be followed for your website.

This session will cover the following areas:

• An introduction to accessibility laws
  • Applicable Laws
    • ADA Title III
    • California Unruh Act
  • Practical implications (ramps, parking, sign language interpretation, etc)
  • Consequences of non-compliance (private lawsuits, DOJ investigations, treble damages, etc).
  • Resources on the ADA
• Applying accessibility laws to the web
  • Challenges applying accessibility laws to the internet and how the courts have interpreted applying accessibility laws to the internet
  • How DOJ and private litigants have interpreted applying accessibility laws to the internet
  • Where is the law heading?
    • Private litigation and settlement agreements
    • DOJ rulemaking
  • Practical Advice and safe harbors
• What does it mean for a site to be “accessible”
  • WCAG 2.0 AA
• Practical tips
  • Move towards websites accessibility
    • Different approaches based on different challenges (types of organizations)
    • New content versus existing content
    • Training, automated testing, etc.
    • Incorporating an accessibility statement
  • Next steps
    • Assessing websites for accessibility
    • Hiring a developer to ensure your site is accessible
      • Expertise
      • Contract provisions
      • Remediation testing
    • Other technologies
      • Mobile apps
      • PDFs and other electronic documents
    • I’ve been sued!! Now what do I do??
      • Outside counsel
      • Develop an accessibility plan
        • Remediate existing content
        • Plan for future content
        • Create an accessibility statement and commit to it

Objectives:

• Understand the US accessibility laws and how they apply to the web.
• Understand what it means to be accessible and meet WCAG 2.0 AA standards.
• Understanding the steps to be taken towards making a website accessible. 

Speaker Bio: Ken Nakata is the Director of the Accessibility Consulting Practice at Cryptzone and a well-known attorney in the area of IT accessibility. His work focuses on web and software accessibility from both a legal and technical perspective. He also helps organizations manage the change towards accessibility in all aspects-including crafting policies, developing stakeholder ownership, and forging awareness and commitment to the legal and business case supporting accessibility. Ken worked for twelve years as a Senior Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice. He has argued on behalf of the United States government many times before the federal courts and has helped shape the government's policies for the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. In addition to litigation, he also helped developed many of the Department's policies, including Accessibility of State and Local Government Websites to People with Disabilities available at http://www.ada.gov/websites2.htm) and which reflects the Department's current view towards ADA compliance for state and local government websites. He is a frequent speaker on both law and technology and is equally adept at conducting one-on-one workshops with programmers and developers as well as explaining law and policy to large audiences.