Everything You Need to Know About the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

The ADA is a U.S. civil rights law from 1990 that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, public services and places open to the public. For website owners the relevant part is Title III, which covers businesses serving the public. Courts and the Department of Justice have applied these rules to websites and mobile apps, because an inaccessible site excludes customers from services a business offers online.

Yes, if your business serves the public. U.S. courts have ruled that websites and online services fall under the ADA, especially where a site is connected to a physical business or is used to sell goods and services. Online shops, healthcare providers, financial services, education and hospitality sites sell directly to the public and are therefore most often affected. Which obligations apply to your specific site depends on your business; a qualified adviser can confirm the details.

In practice it means your website works for people with disabilities: text alternatives for images, keyboard-only navigation, captions on video, sufficient color contrast, clear headings and labels, visible error messages, a defined page language and reliable screen reader support. ADA compliance is not a certificate you can buy once — it is the measurable state of your website against an accepted standard, most often WCAG 2.2 Level AA.

The ADA is the law: people with disabilities must not be excluded from services. WCAG is the technical standard: it defines what to build, down to contrast ratios, alt text, keyboard operability and error handling. The ADA itself does not name a technical standard, so courts, settlement agreements and DOJ guidance work with WCAG as the benchmark. Meeting WCAG Level AA is therefore the practical way to satisfy the ADA for your website.

The duty is mandatory for covered businesses; the technical standard is set case by case. The ADA prohibits excluding people with disabilities, and the Department of Justice has confirmed the law applies to websites. Because the statute names no fixed technical rule, the reference used in practice is WCAG, most often Level AA. There is no official government certificate — your website is judged on how it actually performs for real users.

Start with an automated scan and add the manual checks on top. allyWay crawls your website and flags the automatically detectable WCAG issues behind ADA claims — missing alt text, low contrast, unlabeled form fields, broken heading structure and more — and returns a prioritized report. Criteria that need human judgment, such as keyboard navigation or checkout, come with step-by-step instructions. Your first scan is free, so you see exactly where your site stands.

allyWay covers the whole workflow in one tool: an AI-powered scan against WCAG 2.2, automatic fixes for supported issues, an accessibility widget that gives visitors usable controls right away, and continuous monitoring that alerts you when new barriers appear on your pages. One place to find issues, automate what can be automated and get guided instructions for the rest — starting with a 7-day free trial.

Businesses receive demand letters and lawsuits over inaccessible websites, and a settlement typically forces remediation plus ongoing monitoring — costs that arrive after the barriers already existed. A traditional expert audit runs to thousands of dollars per review. allyWay starts with a free scan and a 7-day trial, then covers continuous scanning, automatic fixes and monitoring in a predictable monthly plan. Working on accessibility now is cheaper than responding to a complaint later.