Last month, the Supreme Court turned down an appeal from Domino’s Pizza, upholding a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) protects access to restaurants and stores including their accompanying websites and apps. A lawsuit was brought up by a blind individual against Domino’s because their website lacked the software that would allow the individual to fully communicate with it. While Domino’s lawyers agreed that the ADA provision of “full and equal enjoyment of the goods and services … of any place of public accommodations” applied to their brick-and-mortar locations, they did not believe that it applied to their website. This ruling suggests that retailers will be required to make their websites ADA compliant, or risk being vulnerable to a lawsuit.
Hybridge cannot provide legal guidance nor elaborate on the exact intricacies of the ADA or determine exactly whether or not certain websites meet ADA compliance guidelines. There is no clear cut, federally specified direction on how to make websites ADA compliant, but research online can show some common ways businesses address accessibility issues. We do know that ecommerce websites that run on Shopify are ADA compliant. If you sell goods online, you need to investigate and ensure your website/app is accessible and not a potential liability that can expose you to lawsuit.
