Not A Checklist: Building Accessibility Compliance Into Your Business Processes

Among the top million websites' homepages, 98% have accessibility barriers, according to WebAIM. WebAIM also found an average of almost 60 accessibility barriers per homepage, concluding that less than 1% of homepages were actually accessible. As a result, there are about 2,500 federal lawsuits filed in the US about inaccessible websites and technologies every year, but other countries, including Canada and the EU, have stepped up more recently and learned the lessons of the ADA.

This blog post is adapted from a presentation made at axe-con 2021. The goal of this blog post is to highlight that complying with the ADA or the Canadian laws is not a checklist and that, in general, accessibility is not a checklist. In other words, digital accessibility is not about checking the boxes of WCAG 2.0, it's not about compliance with the law, and it's not a one-and-done proposition.