The ADA applies to your website, and nobody sends you a checklist

What it is

Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires places of public accommodation to be accessible to people with disabilities. The Department of Justice takes the position that this reaches the websites of businesses open to the public, and has published guidance saying so.

Does it apply to you

• Your business is open to the public. The categories in the statute are broad and cover most retail, professional services, hospitality, health care and financial businesses.
• You have a website that customers use, whether or not you sell anything through it. An informational site that lets somebody find your hours or contact you is in scope.
• The obligation applies at any size. Title III turns on being open to the public, and the employee thresholds people remember belong to Title I, which covers employment.

What being wrong costs

Enforcement comes from two directions: the Department of Justice, and private suits brought by individuals. The private route is the common one, and it usually opens with a demand letter. Several states also have their own accessibility and civil rights statutes that attach their own remedies to the same conduct, which is why the same website can face a claim under more than one law at once.

What it demands

• Content that assistive technology can read: text alternatives for images, headings that describe structure, form fields with labels a screen reader announces.
• Operation without a mouse. Every control reachable and usable by keyboard, with a visible indication of what is focused.
• Text that stays legible when someone enlarges it or overrides colors, and contrast sufficient for people with low vision.
• The Department of Justice guidance points to WCAG as the widely used technical standard, and WCAG 2.2 Level AA is what the industry treats as the target.

What WebSpark does

• Every page is tested against WCAG 2.2 AA, and publishing waits for a pass.
• Contrast is measured for every declared color pairing, at 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for interface boundaries.
• Automated testing runs on every route, every time anything changes, so a fix stays fixed and a regression surfaces on the change that caused it.
• Components carry their own accessibility. Focus indication, keyboard operation, target size and reflow are properties of the building blocks, so a new page inherits them.

What you can show

• A dated monthly record naming every route tested, what was checked, and what it found.
• A published accessibility statement describing the standard targeted, the known gaps, and how to report a barrier.
• A per-build artifact, kept and versioned, so the record covers the whole period.

What stays yours

• Content you publish through channels we do not run: a PDF emailed to a customer, a third-party booking widget, a social embed.
• Deciding whether to obtain a legal opinion on your own exposure. We describe obligations and evidence what the site does. We are not your lawyer and nothing here is legal advice.
• Reporting a barrier you hit. Automated testing finds a large share of barriers. A person trying to use the site finds the rest, so tell us when something is wrong.