WE recently had a customer contact one of our offices to tell us she is legally blind, and that she was having trouble with our website. Does anyone know what aspects of our website must be ADA compliant? Thanks!

There is some helpful information on the ADA website
http://www.ada.gov/pcatoolkit/chap5toolkit.htm
I hope this helps.

I am looking for information that would pertain mainly to the banking industry. This covers state and local government. Thanks for the help though.

You're asking a question that is difficult to answer. Here is my understanding in a nutshell.

The ADA doesn't apply to a website. It was decided many years ago in a (as I recall) Southwest Airlines case. The judge said the WWW wasn't applicable. But read on...

When a bank gets a call like that they try to accommodate the person as best they can. If the person combines with a national group and decides to sue, the press is terrible. Several cases that progressed like that were settled. In some cases the judges indicated that the WWW is different than back in the SW days as it is integral more now and if this person is WWW dependent for banking services, litigation could be costly.

So I have not seen anything that says it definitively is subject to the ADA, but it is in a practical world. At one time I thought it might be good to have a fancy site with the bells and whistles and a plain vanilla site that was easily ADA compatible. The I was reminded if they were targeted that way they may be deemed "separate but equal" and that did not work in the past. So that wasn't a good idea.

Perhaps it's time to ask what parts are difficult and see if the resolution is hard or easy. There are companies that can assist.

Thanks Andy, I will definitely pass this information on. I was having a hard time finding anything.

Although the language of the ADA does not explicitly mention the Internet, the DOJ has taken the position that title III covers access to websites of public accommodations.

The DOJ has issued guidance on the ADA as applied to the websites of public entities, which includes the availability of standards for website accessibility; it gives you their thought process. See Accessibility of State and Local Government Websites to People with Disabilities (June 2003), available at www.ada.gov/websites2.htm.

The DOJ has stated that an agency (and similarly a public accommodation) with an inaccessible website may meet its legal obligations by providing an accessible alternative for individuals to enjoy its goods or services, such as a staffed telephone information line.

The alternative must provide an equal degree of access in terms of hours of operation and range of options and programs available.

Example: If bank services are posted on an inaccessible website that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to individuals without disabilities, then the alternative accessible method must also be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Additional guidance is available in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), available at www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT, which are developed and maintained by the Web Accessibility Initiative, a subgroup of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C¨).

The DOJ issued proposed website guidance for government sites and public accommodations in July 2011. Nothing has come of it yet.

http://www.ada.gov/anprm2010/web%20anprm_2010.htm

From a customer service standpoint, I would try for reasonable alternatives.

I did find that as well Kaybee. I am going to go through all of the information that I have. Thanks everyone for the information.

You might be interested to know that H&R Block recently settled a lawsuit and entered into a consent decree with DOJ regarding its website and mobile aps.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2014/March/14-crt-239.html

DOJ is expected to issue the website guidelines later this year, probably effective in 2015. In this settlement, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines were used, which leads those following this to believe that these will be the standards in the rules when published.

Those can be accessed here.

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/