In took legal action to get our attention, but the last two weeks have seen web accessibility go from a non-issue at ski resorts to an anxiety-inducing concern.

There are some good ideas being passed around, but I wanted to share information worthy of the such a big, important topic.

So I contacted Jared Smith. Jared is the Associate Director of WebAIM, one of the most talented and respected web accessibility organizations in the world and a guy who has traveled the world training small businesses and Inc 500 companies alike on web accessibility. He’s also someone I was lucky to work with for a few months before I joined Ryan Solutions in 2011.

Here’s what he had to say.

—

Gregg: Jared, I’ll link to WebAIM’s “Intro to Web Accessibility” article, but give me the 30-second, “what is web accessibility” overview as we get started to make sure we’re all on the same page.
Jared: Web accessibility is enabling a web site to be readily used by someone with a disability. It is about the human experience, not simply meeting technical requirements. There is a significant overlap with usability. Ensuring your web site is accessible to users with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive/learning disabilities allows a significant number of users (up to 20% of the population has a disability) to readily access and use your web site.

Gregg: I think a big piece of this topic’s sudden concern is how marketers and GMs perceive this issue. My guess is that it was previously viewed as moral or a business decision. But how much falls into those categories and how much of this is a legal obligation?
Jared: Anti-discrimination laws are not new. But until recent years there has been little clarification of their applicability to web sites. The Department of Justice has clarified than an inaccessible web site can be deemed discriminatory. Regardless of the legal implications, we think that web accessibility is the right thing to do and makes business sense. It has an impact on the lives of real people.

Gregg: On that note, how large of a liability is it for a resort or ski area to have a website that’s non compliant?
Jared: It’s difficult to know for sure. The fact that letters threatening legal action are being sent clearly suggests potential liability. The difficulty of the current legal situation is that there are not yet technical requirements that define discrimination for web sites. The federal government has repeatedly delayed release of these technical standards for years, and just this week indicated that they would not be released until at least late 2017.

Despite a lack of standards, the Department of Justice has taken numerous actions against private and public entities because of inaccessible web sites. All recent actions have required Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 level A and AA compliance. The path to avoiding such liability is clear – have a documented plan to address accessibility (with WCAG 2.0 A/AA being the goal) and make reasonable progress in addressing current issues.

Gregg: Have you ever seen any of those entities granted time or leniency because of the lack of standards and the delay on the government’s part to establish them?
Jared: Short answer: No. The government does have the very dates and minimal Section 508 standards (though these are not required under ADA), but these have not been the basis for Department of Justice requirements. The DOJ is clearly sending the message that they anticipate that private and (especially) public entity web sites need to address accessibility and that WCAG 2.0 A/AA is their yardstick for measuring that accessibility, even though there is little legal basis for this.

Gregg: Where does this liability start/stop? For example, what about email templates? Or content marketing initiatives like videos that may live on YouTube or Vimeo or images shared on social media? Or something else entirely?
Jared: Recent lawsuits and DOJ actions do not have a very defined scope. WCAG applies to all web content, which has been defined to include HTML e-mails, video content, social media content, etc. Recent DOJ actions have also applied WCAG to mobile applications and content.

Gregg: So let’s say our teams decides to make things right. Is there such thing as a quick fix?
Jared: There are certainly basic things that can be done now to address many significant accessibility issues. Adding alternative text to images, ensuring form controls have labels, and making sure that pages are keyboard navigable and have visible keyboard focus indicators (so sighted users can see where they are at when tabbing through the page) are good places to start. You can add captions to important YouTube videos. The WAVE accessibility evaluation tool can identify errors that you may be able to easily address. WebAIM’s WCAG 2.0 checklist and Quick Reference for Testing Web Accessibility can help you identify issues. A complex site that has not yet had accessibility considered will likely take some effort to bring into WCAG A/AA compliance, but it is not an unreasonable or overly difficult task.

Gregg: Redesign season in the ski industry will start up in a few months. What should resorts be doing NOW to be as prepared as possible for that process?
Jared: A policy and technical requirement for WCAG 2.0 A/AA compliance (or at least substantial compliance, or perhaps even just level A compliance to start) is a critical component. Many in the industry do not build or maintain their own sites, so technical requirements for accessibility will need to be defined with design/development contractors.

Despite the threats of legal action, I think it’s important that we consider web accessibility as something that impacts people – users of our web sites and potential customers. Statistically most of us will experience disability at some point in our lives, especially as we age. By addressing accessibility now, we are making the web more accessible for our future selves.

—

And if you do get serious, I’d highly recommend their on-site training. I went through it five years ago and can’t even begin to say how much I learned.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.