Top 10 ADA Violations That Get Businesses Sued

Screen readers read alt text aloud to blind users. Without it, images are completely invisible. This is the single most-cited violation in ADA lawsuits — appearing in over 60% of cases.

Unlabeled form fields are unusable for people with screen readers. Checkout forms, contact forms, and search bars are common offenders. Prevents users from completing transactions.

Low contrast text is unreadable for users with low vision or color blindness. WCAG AA requires a 4.5:1 contrast ratio for normal text and 3:1 for large text (18px+ or 14px+ bold).

Use a contrast checker (WebAIM or Chrome DevTools). Replace light gray text on white backgrounds. Common offenders: placeholder text, footer links, disabled buttons.

Tool: webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker

Users with motor disabilities navigate entirely by keyboard (Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, Space). If your menus, modals, or carousels trap keyboard focus or skip elements, the site is unusable.

Test by unplugging your mouse and navigating with Tab only. Every interactive element must be reachable and operable. Ensure modals trap focus inside and restore it on close.

Screen readers need the page language to use the correct pronunciation rules. Without it, they often mispronounce words, making content incomprehensible to visually impaired users.

Screen reader users navigate by headings (like a table of contents). Jumping from H1 to H4 breaks the document structure, making it impossible to understand page hierarchy.

Use headings sequentially: H1 (page title) → H2 (sections) → H3 (subsections). Never skip levels for styling purposes — use CSS instead.

Without a skip link, keyboard users must Tab through your entire navigation menu on every single page. Sites with 20+ nav items become unusable.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing users cannot access video audio content without captions. Auto-generated captions from YouTube often contain errors — human review is required for WCAG compliance.

Add a <track> element with a WebVTT (.vtt) caption file. For YouTube embeds, enable closed captions and verify accuracy. Provide a text transcript as an alternative.

Users with low vision zoom in to read content. Setting user-scalable=no prevents this and directly violates WCAG 1.4.4.

Screen readers read link text in isolation. "Click here" or "Read more" provide no context about where the link goes. Users with visual impairments cannot navigate effectively.