Digital Accessibility News

WWE has been served a lawsuit for denying equal access to its WWEShop website. Josue Romero, filed a lawsuit against WWE with the United States District Court Southern District Of New York On 10/6. According to the filing, “Romero is a visually-impaired and legally blind person who requires screen-reading software to read website content using his computer”. Romero’s lawsuit alleges shop.wwe.com “is not equally accessible...

When James Blanchard designed his winery and taproom in Denver's Dairy Block two years ago, compliance was front of mind. "Making sure your entry doorways are wide enough, your table spacing is wide enough, I have clear pathways to the restroom," said Blanchard, who owns Blanchard Family Wines with his brother. "We 100% want to be accessible, we want to be compliant, we want to...

The U.S. Department of Labor has dedicated October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month. For my first column this month, I wanted to revisit the sentiment my predecessor and mentor Edythe Copeland reinforced — the importance of decreasing discrimination of all kinds in the workforce. She fought for that throughout her career and, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m committed to continuing her legacy. Earlier this...

The realization that people with disabilities are often overlooked in access to digital technologies is not new. But it has of late come to the fore as the global pandemic has raged. The World Health Organisation highlights this in a brief urging awareness on the inequalities they may be facing during the pandemic, including accessing information. The organization defines a disabled person as anyone who...

The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed by Congress in 1990 and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. It was recognized at the time as the biggest piece of civil rights legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1965. While it was thought that becoming “ADA-compliant” would take years and billions of dollars, probably few would have expected that it would take public...

James Blanchard had just reopened his Denver winery this summer after being shut down for months because of COVID-19 when he got hit with a different kind of challenge — a surprise lawsuit alleging the website for his family business violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. The lawsuit said David Katt, a resident of Douglas County who is blind, couldn’t use the downtown winery’s website...

When most people think of e-readers, they think of Amazon’s Kindle line. There certainly are competitors, but Kindle to the e-reader market holds the same cachet in terms of brand awareness as Kleenex does for facial tissues and Band-Aid does for band aids. And not only is the Kindle a family of bespoke devices, it’s also an app that runs on third-party platforms such as...

Disability inclusion in workplaces and business is the new norm, said Dr Gerard Goggin, professor of communication studies, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). “It’s worth striving for because people with disabilities are very diverse and include many of us,” Goggin said. “Adding to that, all of us in one way or another have some lived experience or...

According to Microsoft’s chief accessibility officer, the greatest challenge about including employees with disabilities into your diversity and inclusion strategy is this: getting started. “I think the most important thing with disability is to start,” said Jenny Lay-Flurrie, chief accessibility officer at Microsoft. “People worry about starting. I would say get on that journey, get going.” It is “very important” to really start to manage...

It was 2017, and Simon Wheatcroft was about to run the New York City Marathon solo. That might not sound like a big deal -- over 50,000 people run it every year on their own. But Wheatcroft is registered blind. Wheatcroft was the first blind person to attempt to run the race by himself. Usually, blind runners compete tethered to a sighted running guide. But...

Businesses enjoyed a brief reprieve in ADA Title III lawsuits while the country was shut down, but the rest of the year will most likely be business as usual. In the first six months of 2020, 4,759 ADA Title III lawsuits were filed in federal court, as compared to 5,592 of such suits filed in the first six months of 2019, for a decrease of...

A few years ago, challenger banks burst onto the scene and were hailed as disrupters, changing the face of banking forever. People were enamored with brightly colored payment cards connected to slick apps that provided a superb user experience and cut out the inconvenience of heading into branches for services. Until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it was looking like traditional banks were out of the...