Website Disability Accommodations

Why this shows up in small business inboxes

Small shops get website accessibility lawsuits and demand letters too, and they tend to name the same handful of problems: images with no description, text that's hard to read, forms a screen reader can't use.

I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice. But most of what these letters point to is fixable, and a lot of it you can check yourself.

What the law actually says

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires businesses open to the public to serve people with disabilities, and the Department of Justice's 2022 guidance on web accessibility says that includes what they offer online.

For private businesses, the DOJ hasn't set a required technical standard. Its guidance says businesses can choose how they make their sites accessible, and points to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as helpful guidance. In 2024 the DOJ did make WCAG 2.1 Level AA the required standard for state and local government sites. It doesn't apply to private businesses, but it's the clearest signal of what the DOJ considers accessible, which makes it a sensible target.

What the checks look for

Most of it comes down to a short list:

• Image descriptions. Every meaningful image needs "alt text," a short description that screen-reader software reads aloud for people who can't see the screen.
• Contrast. Light gray text on a white background is hard to read, and it fails.
• Keyboard use. Menus, forms, and buttons should all work with the Tab and Enter keys, no mouse.
• Form labels. Every field needs a real label, not just gray placeholder text that disappears when you start typing.
• Captions on any video where people talk.
• Nothing that flashes rapidly, which can trigger seizures.

What to do this week

1. Run a free scan. Put your home page and your contact page into WAVE, a free checker from WebAIM. It flags missing alt text, low contrast, and unlabeled form fields.
2. Try your own site with only a keyboard. Press Tab to move through the page. If you can't reach the menu or submit the contact form, neither can someone who doesn't use a mouse.
3. Fix the easy ones first. Alt text and form labels are usually a few minutes each in any website editor.
4. Remember the scan isn't the whole job. Automated checkers only catch part of the problem. They can tell an image has no description, not whether the description makes sense. A person still needs to look.

If a demand letter does arrive, don't ignore it and don't reply on your own. Send it to an attorney, and start fixing what it names right away.

The same fixes also make the site easier for everyone else to read and use on a phone.