Protect Your Credit Union with a Website Accessibility Response Plan

1/11/2019

Protect Your Credit Union with a Website Accessibility Response PlanEven when a credit union is in the middle of conducting a website audit to meet ADA accessibility requirements, there is still the chance a demand letter could be sent by an unhappy member or website user. Credit unions should have a plan in place to make the response and redress process as smooth as possible and to mitigate any damage to the credit union’s image. 

“To exacerbate the problem, when these legal demands hit, it turns out that they are, in many ways and instances, backed by legal precedent,” explains Sean Bradley, president and chief technology officer at AudioEye, a technology firm that specializes in online accessibility.

“These complaints are founded on the idea that the business or organization has neglected to accommodate individuals with disabilities, a sizable and ever-growing market that exceeds 1 billion individuals, worldwide. Obviously, these scenarios present a high-risk and immediate challenge that tends to trigger chaos within the organization scrambling to retroactively ‘comply’ as they seek to avoid the potential negative publicity that may come from any perception that they failed to address such a large and often marginalized constituency.”

While it would be best to meet ADA accessibility requirements from the moment a website launches, a response plan can save credit unions who might have overlooked this step much of the hassle Bradley mentions above.

Key steps in a successful response plan

With a response plan in place while ADA website accessibility requirement updates or changes are being made, credit union leaders can feel more confident they are doing all they can to meet the diverse needs of their membership.



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