ADA website compliance: keyboard and screen reader use

The rule

The statute says nothing about websites, and the Justice Department has not issued a regulation for private-sector sites.

Courts divide on whether a website is a “place of public accommodation”.

Title III itself works differently. Private plaintiffs get the remedies of 42 U.S.C. § 2000a-3(a), which is “a civil action for preventive relief, including an application for a permanent or temporary injunction”. The Attorney General can also seek civil penalties (§ 12188(b)(2)(C)).

What PeekWell checks and how

US-06 asks the same question as EU-10 and UK-12: can an automated engine find barriers for keyboard and screen reader users on the public pages it visited?

The scan opens key public pages in a headless browser and runs an accessibility engine, axe-core with Pa11y alongside it, against each one. It runs WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 level AA checks and records every failed rule by success criterion. It puts alt text, form labels, contrast and keyboard access first, all four on the Justice Department’s list of common barriers, and checks landmarks too. The decision comes from the engine’s output, not from a language model. Where the report frames the law for California visitors it mentions the Unruh Act and its statutory minimum, as enforcement context and never as a total for the company.

The scan has limits, and the report says so. It sees the public pages it visited and nothing behind a sign-in. It does not sign in or submit forms. An automated engine finds only part of what a person using a screen reader would find: the axe-core maintainers say it finds on average 57% of WCAG issues, and that it returns elements as “incomplete” where it cannot be certain. It cannot tell whether a site connects to a physical business, the question the courts argue about, and it does not check captions. A Passed means the expected behaviour was observed on the pages scanned. It does not say the site complies.

Why it matters for a company

In 2022 the Justice Department alleged, after a compliance review, that parts of the CVS vaccine registration portal were not accessible to some people with disabilities, citing form fields screen readers could not identify and a control that would take hundreds, or potentially thousands, of Tab presses to cross. CVS expressly denied violating the ADA and also denied that WCAG 2.1 AA was binding on it, except as the agreement provided. It agreed to bring its vaccine content to WCAG 2.1 AA and to test it, with automated tools and with disabled testers. The agreement states no payment. Robles is the court-side record: a blind customer’s claim against a company with physical outlets survived dismissal, and the claim went back to the district court.

Three consequences follow. A settlement with the Department can fix a target standard where no regulation does. Claims turn on facts such as whether the site connects to a physical business. And plaintiffs can lose: in Thurston v. Omni Hotels the jury found the plaintiff never meant to book a room, and the Court of Appeal affirmed that a website claimant under the Unruh Act must show a bona fide intent to use the service.

Smaller companies and larger companies

Title III has no general size exemption, and claims turn on facts rather than headcount. The threshold question matters: a business with physical premises faces the Ninth Circuit’s rule, while an online-only business has the argument the California Court of Appeal accepted in Cot’n Wash, which other circuits contest.

In a small company the site is usually a theme on a hosted shop platform, often with a free accessibility widget added in the hope that it settles the matter. The FTC’s order against accessiBe, announced 3 January 2025 and approved in final form on 22 April 2025, concerned a product marketed as able to “make any website compliant” with WCAG. The FTC alleged the claim was false. The order bars such claims without substantiating evidence and requires a payment of $1 million. It is not a finding about any customer’s site. It is a reason to test the pages whatever tool is installed.

In a larger company the pages are built by several teams and suppliers, and an app, a checkout and a store locator may each have different owners. CVS told the Department it had a dedicated accessibility team and yearly outside audits, and still entered an agreement with testing duties.

How to fix it

1. Try your own site with the keyboard. Put the mouse away and press Tab through the home page, a product page and the checkout. Note where you cannot reach a control, cannot see where you are or cannot leave a pop-up. WCAG 2.1.2 asks that focus can always move away, and 2.4.7 that the focus indicator is visible.
2. Give every picture and field a name. Meaningful images need a text alternative (WCAG 1.1.1). Form fields need a visible label tied to the field, not placeholder text alone.
3. Check contrast. WCAG 1.4.3 asks for a ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. Browser developer tools show the ratio for any element.
4. Set the page language. WCAG 3.1.1 asks that the language of each page can be determined by software.
5. Treat a widget as an addition, not the fix. If you use an accessibility overlay, fix the underlying code as well and test the pages without it.
6. Write down what you test. Keep dated notes of pages tested, findings and changes. The CVS agreement turned on regular automated and user testing.
7. Re-scan. Run a scan after each change. A finding should disappear once the engine stops reporting that rule. Then test with a screen reader yourself or with people who use one, because the engine will not catch everything.

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Whether a given site is covered by Title III or the Unruh Act is a question for your legal adviser, and Peeky reports only what it sees.