Curb-Cut Effect: Why Accessibility Helps Everyone
A ramp cut for wheelchairs ends up helping parents, travelers, and delivery workers. Online, the same thing happens — and it's why we work the way we do.
The Curbcut Blog
Accessibility news, lawsuits & how-tos
ADA lawsuit trends, WCAG explained in plain English, and practical remediation guidance — written by people who actually fix code. Subscribe via RSS.
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accessiBe vs UserWay vs AudioEye: Honest Review
Most accessiBe-vs-UserWay-vs-AudioEye comparisons are written by the vendors themselves. We sell none of the three — here's the referee's scorecard.
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Accessibility Widgets vs a Screen Reader: Tested
We ran the big accessibility widgets through six NVDA and VoiceOver checks. They failed the ones that decide whether a blind customer can buy from you.
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Accessible Data Tables: Pricing and Hours Fixes
Your pricing table looks fine to you and reads as word soup to a screen reader. Three small markup fixes — th, scope, caption — repair it without touching the design.
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Accessible Form Error Messages That Convert
A red border and the word 'Error' is where leads go to die. Here's how to write form error messages every visitor can see, understand, and fix — with before/after copy.
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Accessible WordPress Theme: How to Vet One
The 'accessibility-ready' badge is a floor, not a guarantee. Here's the 15-minute demo test that tells you whether a theme is actually safe to build on.
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Accordion Accessibility: Fix Your FAQ Section
Your FAQ accordion looks fine with a mouse. Under the hood, most page-builder accordions fail at least one of four checks a keyboard or screen-reader user depends on.
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ADA Compliance Certification: Is It Real?
Nobody — not the DOJ, not the W3C — certifies websites as ADA compliant. Here's what the badges vendors sell actually are, and what to collect instead.
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ADA Website Compliance Email: Scam or Real?
Three questions separate a real ADA demand from an extortion email: is there a named plaintiff, a case number you can find, and a normal way to pay? Here's how to check all three in under an hour.
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ADA Tax Credit for Website Accessibility Work
The IRS will cover half of your website accessibility spend, up to $5,000 a year. Here's the Form 8826 math overlay vendors leave out of the pitch.
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ADA Website Lawsuits 2026: Mid-Year Numbers
Halfway through 2026, the lawsuit map has been redrawn: Illinois is the new epicenter, Shopify stores absorb 44% of filings, and widgets still aren't saving anyone.
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AI Website Builder Accessibility: What We Found
We put three real AI-built sites through the same checks our scanner runs, then read the code by hand. The results were better than expected — and worse exactly where it counts.
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Alt Text Edge Cases: Logos, Decorative, Products
Everyone knows images need alt text. The arguments start at the edge cases — logos, decorative flourishes, product shots, text-in-images. Here's the full decision tree.
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Axe vs WAVE vs Lighthouse: Which to Trust
We ran axe, WAVE, Lighthouse, and Pa11y against the same intentionally broken page. Four tools, five different answers — here's which one to trust for your job.
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Best Fonts for Accessibility: Facts vs Myths
Half the internet will sell you a list of 'ADA-compliant fonts.' No such list exists. Here's what the evidence actually says about accessible typography.
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Best Shopify Accessibility Apps: A Buyer's Guide
Search 'accessibility' in the Shopify App Store and almost everything you find is an overlay widget. Here's how to sort the category before you spend a dollar.
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Best WordPress Accessibility Plugins Compared
We put six WordPress accessibility plugins on a stock install and watched what each caught, fixed, and missed. Three earned a spot. Three did not.
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Can AI Make Your Website ADA Compliant?
AI can genuinely fix a slice of accessibility problems — and reliably botches the rest. Here's the criterion-by-criterion scoreboard vendors won't show you.
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Are CAPTCHAs ADA Compliant? Alternatives Ranked
Screen reader users rank CAPTCHA as the single most frustrating thing on the web. Here's a no-vendor comparison of reCAPTCHA v3, hCaptcha, Turnstile, and honeypots — ranked by who can actually get through.
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Carousel Accessibility: Fix or Delete Your Slider
The autoplaying hero slider your theme shipped with fails WCAG out of the box — and roughly 1% of visitors ever click it. Here's how to decide: fix or delete.
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Click Here Links: Why They Fail and What to Use
Pull up your page as a screen reader hears it and every 'click here' becomes an identical, meaningless stop. Here's how to rewrite them — and why Google will thank you.
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Cookie Banner Accessibility: Fix Your Consent Tool
Your cookie banner is the first thing every visitor — and every plaintiff's tester — has to get past. Independent testing keeps failing the popular consent tools. Here's how to check and fix yours.
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Custom Focus Indicator CSS Your Designer Will OK
outline: none is probably in your stylesheet right now. Here are five replacement focus styles that pass AA, hide from mouse users, and won't get vetoed by your designer.
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Dark Mode Accessibility: Preference, Not a Fix
A dark theme feels like an accessibility upgrade. It isn't one — it's a preference, and if either theme fails 4.5:1 contrast, you fail WCAG. Here's the honest breakdown.
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Do Emails Need to Be ADA Compliant?
No regulation names email marketing, but the ADA covers how your business communicates — and 99.88% of HTML emails fail basic accessibility checks. Here's the fix.
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Does the ADA Apply to Mobile Apps?
A blind customer couldn't order a pizza through the Domino's app, and the lawsuit that followed decided the question for everyone: yes, the ADA reaches mobile apps.
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Does the ADA Apply to Online-Only Businesses?
No storefront doesn't mean no ADA risk. Federal courts are split on whether a website alone is a 'place of public accommodation' — and plaintiffs get to pick the court.
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Does Insurance Cover an ADA Website Lawsuit?
Most business owners assume some policy in their stack covers an ADA website claim. Usually none of them do — and even the one that can never pays to fix the site.
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ADA Title II Deadline Extension: New 2027 Dates
The DOJ pushed the Title II web accessibility deadlines back a year — four days before they hit. Here's what changed, what didn't, and what to do with the extra time.
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Dyslexia-Friendly Web Design That Actually Helps
The special 'dyslexia fonts' keep failing in peer-reviewed studies. The changes that actually help dyslexic readers are ordinary CSS — here's the evidence-based list.
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FTC accessiBe Order, One Year Later
The FTC banned the overlay industry's biggest promise. A year later the marketing is softer, the widgets are the same — and a quarter of sued sites still have one installed.
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Geo-Blocking California to Avoid ADA Lawsuits?
After an Unruh Act demand letter, blocking every California IP address sounds like the cheap way out. It isn't — the federal ADA follows you everywhere, VPNs walk right through the wall, and New York is waiting on the other side.
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Hamburger Menu Accessibility in 5 Minutes
On a phone, the hamburger menu isn't a nice-to-have — it's your entire navigation. Here's a five-minute, no-tools check to find out if yours locks people out.
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HHS Section 504 Web Rule: Healthcare Deadlines
If your practice bills Medicaid, a federal rule now requires your website to meet WCAG 2.1 AA — and the clock is already running, even after the May 2026 extension.
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How Long Does ADA Website Compliance Take?
Vendors say 48 hours. Government guidance says 8 months. For a typical small-business site, the honest answer is 4 to 12 weeks — here's the full breakdown.
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How Often Should You Audit Website Accessibility
You fixed your site. Six months and a dozen plugin updates later, is it still fixed? Here's the re-testing cadence that actually matches how sites break.
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Infinite Scroll vs Pagination for Online Stores
Infinite scroll strands keyboard users, buries your footer, and hides most of your catalog from Google. Here's the product-grid pattern that beats it — and plain pagination too.
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Lighthouse Accessibility Score 100: Not Compliant
A developer once built a site no human could use — no keyboard, no screen reader, invisible text — and Lighthouse gave it a perfect 100. Here's what that score really measures.
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Most Common Website Accessibility Issues, Fixed
Six errors cause 96% of the accessibility failures on the web. Here's what they look like on real small-business sites — and exactly how to fix each one.
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PDF Menu Accessibility: Fix It or Go HTML?
Most restaurant PDF menus are photos of text a screen reader can't read. Here's how to decide between fixing the PDF and switching to HTML — plus a one-hour stopgap.
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Popup and Modal Accessibility: Test and Fix
That newsletter popup you installed in five minutes can lock a keyboard user out of your entire site. Here's a 3-step test anyone can run, and the fixes that hold up.
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prefers-reduced-motion: The 10-Line Animation Fix
Your homepage parallax can trigger real dizziness, nausea, and migraines. Ten lines of CSS make your site respect the visitor's own reduce-motion setting.
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How to Remove an Accessibility Widget Safely
Deleting the widget code does not cancel the subscription — and canceling has deadlines. Here's the full exit checklist, platform by platform.
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Settle or Fight an ADA Website Lawsuit?
The math usually favors settling — but not always. Five questions about your plaintiff, your court, and your own website tell you which branch you're on.
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Skip to Main Content Link: Copy-Paste Fix
One link, eight lines of CSS, and a 60-second keyboard test — here's the skip link fix for that 'bypass blocks' flag, plus the three ways platforms quietly break it.
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Social Media Accessibility for Small Businesses
Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn all have built-in alt-text fields — most owners have never seen them. Here's where each one hides, plus the two other habits that make posts accessible.
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Can You Be Sued Twice Over ADA Website Claims?
Settling one ADA website lawsuit doesn't stop the next plaintiff. Nearly half of federal digital accessibility suits now hit companies that were already sued once.
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How to Test Your Website With a Screen Reader
You don't need a QA team to hear your website the way a blind customer does. One free screen reader, five keystrokes, three tasks — thirty minutes.
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Touch Target Size: The 24px Rule Explained
WCAG says 24px. Apple says 44pt. Google says 48dp. Here's how the three touch-target numbers actually fit together — and the CSS padding fix that satisfies all of them without touching your design.
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VPAT vs ACR: What Procurement Really Wants
The buyer asked for a VPAT. What they actually want is a completed, credible ACR — here's how to deliver one that helps your deal instead of sinking it.
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WCAG 3.0 Explained: Timeline, Tiers, and APCA
WCAG 3.0 is an early draft that no law references and that won't be finished for years. Here's what's actually in it — and why the 2.2 AA work you do now is the preparation.
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Web Accessibility Statistics 2026
95.9% of top home pages fail automated WCAG checks and lawsuits topped 5,000 last year. Here are the 2026 accessibility numbers — primary sources only.
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Is Your Web Designer Liable for ADA Compliance?
When an ADA website lawsuit lands, it names the business — not the designer who built the site. Here's why, and the contract clause that changes the math.
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Website Accessibility Laws by State (2026)
Your state doesn't need its own web accessibility law for you to be sued — the ADA already covers you. But three states have raised the stakes well beyond it.
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Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress Accessibility
We ran axe scans and keyboard tests on all three builders' own demo sites. Here's what each gets right, what each breaks, and which one to pick.
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Accessible Brand Color Palette That Passes AA
Low-contrast text is the single most common accessibility failure on the web. Here's how to design a brand palette that passes WCAG AA and still looks like yours.
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What an Accessibility Audit Actually Includes
Not all 'accessibility audits' are the same. Some are a one-click scanner report; others are weeks of real testing with a screen reader. Here's how to tell them apart.
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Web Accessibility 2026: What Changed, What's Next
Title II deadlines moved. The EAA has teeth now. Lawsuits hit a record. The FTC fined an overlay vendor. Here's the 2026 accessibility landscape, every claim sourced.
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Video Accessibility: Captions and Transcripts
Captions, transcripts, and audio description sound interchangeable — but WCAG treats them as three different jobs for three different audiences. Here's what each one is for.
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ARIA: The Most Misused Tool in Web Accessibility
ARIA is on 82.7% of the web's top home pages — and pages that use it average more errors, not fewer. The fix is knowing when to reach for it and when to delete it.
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Keyboard Accessibility Test: A 10-Minute Check
Put your mouse down, pick up the Tab key, and you can spot some of the most common ADA risks on your own site in about ten minutes. Here's exactly what to do.
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Screen Reader Checkout Accessibility: Real Fixes
Close your eyes and try to buy something with only your ears and a keyboard. Here's where most checkouts fall apart for screen reader users — and how to fix each break.
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Nonprofit Website Accessibility: Grants and Risk
An inaccessible donate button doesn't just exclude disabled supporters — it loses real gifts, fails grant conditions, and is one of the most-cited barriers in ADA suits.
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PDF Accessibility Compliance: The Hidden Gap
Your website can pass every scan and still fail — because the takeout menu, the billing statement, or the intake form is a flat, untagged PDF a screen reader can't read at all.
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European Accessibility Act for US Businesses
The EAA is an EU law, but its reach follows your customers. If you sell to EU consumers online, location doesn't get you off the hook — and the technical benchmark is one you already know.
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5 Accessibility Fixes That Also Boost Conversions
The same five fixes that make a website usable for people with disabilities are the ones that quietly recover abandoned forms, carts, and clicks.
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Manual vs Automated Accessibility Testing Guide
Automated scanners and human testing find different problems — here's what each one catches, and why a real audit needs both.
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The Real Cost of Ignoring Web Accessibility
An inaccessible website costs you three ways — legal exposure, lost customers, and weaker search rankings — and all three are more expensive than fixing it.
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Shopify Accessibility Issues: Theme & App Fixes
Most Shopify stores fail accessibility in three predictable places — the theme, third-party apps, and checkout — and each one has a concrete fix.
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Website Accessibility Statement: Why It Matters
An honest accessibility statement won't make you lawsuit-proof, but a real one — backed by real work — is one of the cheapest good-faith signals you can publish.
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Automated Accessibility Scans: What They Miss
A clean automated scan can hide the very barriers — and legal exposure — that get businesses sued, because tools test only what a machine can measure.
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WCAG 2.2 New Success Criteria: Do You Need Them?
WCAG 2.2 added nine new success criteria in 2023 — here's what each one actually asks of your site, and a straight answer on whether to target 2.1 or 2.2.
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Is Your Accessibility Overlay Getting You Sued?
Thousands of businesses bought an accessibility overlay to stop ADA lawsuits — and got sued anyway. The litigation data and a $1M FTC order explain why.
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DOJ Title II Web Rule: What Businesses Should Know
The Title II rule technically binds governments, not private companies — but it just made WCAG 2.1 AA the closest thing to an official federal accessibility standard in the U.S.
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ADA Website Lawsuits 2025: Numbers to Know
Federal website-accessibility filings climbed again in 2025 — and the data shows the typical target is a smaller business, not a household name.