Overview of The Americans with Disabilities (ADA) Act 1990 – AccessiBe

Many website owners, designers, and developers are now much concerned about the need for compliance with ADA and the potential penalties for noncompliance. The Americans with Disabilities Act became a law passed by the senate in 1990. However, there was no internet for the public at that time, so the websites and internet resources were not part of any titles under this law. ADA came out as a civil rights law that was meant to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities in public spaces, including employment, transportation, schools, and private places for public access. The law’s primary objective is to ensure that people with disabilities enjoy the same right as others. ADA is divided into five distinct titles, which we will discuss below.

ADA Titles – AccessiBe

Title I – Employment

The right to employment offers reasonable accommodations to all qualified applicants irrespective of their disabilities. This aims at offering equal employment opportunities for people with disabilities. As AccessiBe points out, it is applicable to all employers with 15+ employees.

Title II – State and local government public services

This title under ADA is aimed to prohibit any discrimination based on physical or cogitative disabilities at the public entities owned by local or state government agencies. All the programs, activities, and services by public organizations should be accessible to people with disabilities. The US DOJ (Department of Justice) monitors and enforces this title.

Title III – Public Accommodations

This title mandated any places of public accommodation to avoid discriminating against people with disabilities. Other public accommodations are restaurants, hotels, retail stores, golf courses, health clinics, private schools, daycare facilities, sports and health clubs, theaters, etc. The law specified accessibility minimum standards and alterations to be made at new construction of facilities and up-gradation of existing builds. The law mandates businesses to make reasonable modifications to be compliant with this mandate.

As interpreted by the lawsuits in the meantime, the internet and websites are also considered public accommodation spaces and should be compliant with this title of ADA.

Title IV – Telecommunications

Users with hearing, vision, or speech disabilities should be able to communicate over the telephone without any barriers. Federal Communication Commission regulates this law, and some of the crucial aspects of this law include closed captioning of the public service announcements. It required internet and telephone service providers to offer compliant services nationwide in terms of telecommunication.

Title V – Transportation and miscellaneous

Miscellaneous provision of the ADA Title V consists of different provisions related to ADA as its relationship with other laws. The impact of these titles relates to the ADA as a whole. There are many major provisions listed under disabilities, which the developers and designers know are important. As we have seen above, transportation may be covered under the state and public services in Article II.

AccessiBe states that if a third-party company offers transportation, it is also covered under Title III. The private transportations are like taxis, intercity bus companies, airport shuttles, hotel-sponsored transportation, etc.