More lawsuits filed against companies using accessibility plugin/overlays

ADP has been sued for inaccessibility despite using a popular overlay. The rest of the cases involving overlays have been small potatoes by comparison.

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I am predicting that SF Lighthouse for the Blind v. ADP will be to overlays what the Domino’s case was to general accessibility litigation.

I personally made my first complaint about ADP site inaccessibility on behalf of a blind co-worker about five years ago. I re-iterated the complaints twice in subsequent years. ADP’s reaction to mine (and other’s) complaints was not to fix its website's accessibility issues.

Instead of solving the problem

ADP installed an accessibility overlay.

While AudioEye is not named in the litigation, you can tell that’s what ADP used because ADP says so in their accessibility statement.

AudioEye claims (language directly from their website) to:

• Reduce your risk of a digital accessibility lawsuit;
• Provide the highest level of legal protection, backed by the industry’s only always-on, sustainable solution certifying ADA/Section 508 compliance against WCAG 2.1 AA standards.

But here is what the plaintiffs claimed they experienced with the ADP+AudioEye combination:

1. Links do not work;
2. Screen reader users have difficulty submitting responses;
3. Improper reading order;
4. Unannounced state changes;
5. Edit fields, graphic links, and drop-down menus either unlabeled, inappropriately labeled, or otherwise difficult to interact with; and