ADA Website Compliance in 2026: What Houston Business Owners Are Asking

A Houston restaurant owner received a demand letter last fall. Not about food safety, not about building codes — about her website. The letter claimed her online menu wasn’t accessible to people using screen readers, her reservation form couldn’t be navigated by keyboard, and several images lacked descriptive text.

The settlement demand: $15,000, plus her attorney fees, plus the cost of fixing the issues.

She isn’t alone. Over 5,100 ADA-related digital accessibility lawsuits were filed in 2025, a 20% increase from the year before. And the trend is accelerating. What was once concentrated in New York, California, and Florida has expanded significantly, with Texas seeing a notable increase in filings.

This article covers what Houston business owners are asking most frequently about website accessibility in 2026. This is not legal advice — it’s an overview of the current landscape and what the technical standards involve.

What’s Driving the Increase in Lawsuits?

Several factors have converged to make 2026 a pivotal year for website accessibility enforcement.

The DOJ Made It Official

The Department of Justice has stated clearly that websites are considered places of public accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. While courts debated this point for years, the legal consensus has largely solidified: if a business serves the public, its website is expected to be accessible.

In April 2024, the DOJ published a final rule under ADA Title II requiring state and local government websites to meet specific accessibility standards. Public entities with populations over 50,000 face an April 24, 2026 compliance deadline. Smaller entities have until April 2027.

While Title II applies to government entities, it has created a ripple effect. Private businesses (covered under ADA Title III) are facing increased scrutiny as the legal framework around digital accessibility becomes more defined.

AI Is Lowering the Barrier to Filing

One of the most significant developments in 2025 was the rise of AI-assisted legal filings. According to Accessible.org, tools like ChatGPT and other AI assistants are enabling individuals to draft and file ADA complaints without an attorney. Federal pro se (self-represented) ADA Title III lawsuits increased 40% in 2025 compared to the prior year.

This means the traditional bottleneck — needing a lawyer to file suit — has been largely removed for accessibility claims.

Texas Is No Longer a Low-Activity State

Historically, the vast majority of ADA website lawsuits were filed in New York (which still accounts for a disproportionate share), Florida, and California. But 2025 data shows significant increases in filings across previously low-activity states, including Texas.

Texas also has its own state-level digital accessibility requirements, which adds another layer for Houston businesses to be aware of.

What Are the Standards? Understanding WCAG

When people talk about website accessibility compliance, they’re typically referring to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

The most commonly referenced standard in legal contexts is WCAG 2.1 Level AA, though WCAG 2.2 (published in October 2023) is the most current version and adds several new success criteria.

WCAG is organized around four principles, often abbreviated as POUR:

Perceivable

Content must be presented in ways that all users can perceive. This includes:

Alt text for images — every meaningful image has a text description that screen readers can announce
Captions and transcripts for video and audio content
Sufficient color contrast between text and background (at least a 4.5:1 ratio for normal text)
Content that doesn’t rely solely on color to convey information (like using only red/green to indicate status)

Operable

Users must be able to navigate and interact with the website using various input methods:

Full keyboard navigation — every function accessible without a mouse
No keyboard traps — users can navigate away from any element
Adequate time to read and interact with content
No content that flashes more than three times per second (seizure risk)

Understandable

Content and interface must be clear and predictable:

Readable text at an appropriate level
Consistent navigation patterns across pages
Clear labels on form fields
Helpful error messages that explain what went wrong and how to fix it

Robust

Content must work reliably with current and future technologies:

Clean, valid HTML that assistive technologies can parse correctly
Proper use of ARIA labels (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) where needed
Compatibility with screen readers, voice navigation, and other assistive tools

The Most Common Accessibility Issues

When accessibility audits are performed on business websites, certain problems appear repeatedly. Understanding these patterns gives a sense of what compliance involves in practical terms.

Missing or Inadequate Alt Text

This is the most frequently cited issue in ADA website lawsuits. Every meaningful image — product photos, infographics, team headshots, icons that convey function — benefits from descriptive alt text. Decorative images can be marked as such so screen readers skip them.

Many Houston business websites have dozens or hundreds of images with empty alt attributes or auto-generated descriptions like “IMG_4582.jpg.”

Poor Color Contrast

Text that appears perfectly readable to many users may be invisible or extremely difficult for people with low vision or color blindness. A light gray paragraph on a white background, or thin text on a busy photographic background, are common violations.

WCAG 2.1 AA requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal-sized text and 3:1 for large text (18pt or 14pt bold).

Inaccessible Forms

Contact forms, booking systems, and checkout processes are frequent problem areas. Common issues include:

Form fields without associated labels — a screen reader announces “edit text” instead of “Email Address”
Error messages that aren’t announced to assistive technology
CAPTCHA challenges that only work visually
Dropdown menus that can’t be operated with a keyboard

For Houston service businesses that rely on contact form submissions or online booking, an inaccessible form doesn’t just create legal exposure — it prevents potential customers from reaching the business.

Missing Heading Structure

Screen reader users often navigate pages by jumping between headings, similar to scanning a table of contents. When a page has no heading structure, or when headings are used purely for visual styling (skipping from H1 to H4, for example), navigation becomes disorienting.

Videos Without Captions

Video content on business websites — client testimonials, service explanations, facility tours — frequently lacks closed captions or transcripts. This affects not only deaf and hard-of-hearing users but also anyone watching in a noisy environment or with the sound off.

Accessibility and Good UX: The Overlap

One of the most consistent observations from accessibility work is that improvements made for compliance tend to benefit all users. The overlap between accessibility and good user experience is substantial.

Clear heading structure helps screen reader users navigate and helps sighted users scan content
Adequate color contrast assists users with low vision and improves readability in bright sunlight on mobile devices
Keyboard navigation serves users with motor disabilities and power users who prefer keyboard shortcuts
Descriptive alt text helps blind users and improves SEO (search engines can’t “see” images either)
Captioned videos serve deaf users and the estimated 85% of social media videos watched without sound
Clear form labels reduce confusion for assistive technology users and reduce form abandonment for everyone

Many Houston businesses that have undertaken accessibility improvements report that their overall user experience metrics improved — lower bounce rates, higher form completion rates, and longer time on page. Making a website more accessible tends to make it more usable, period.

Tools for Assessing Accessibility

Several tools can help identify accessibility issues, ranging from free browser extensions to comprehensive audit platforms.

Automated Scanners

WAVE (wave.webaim.org) — free browser extension that highlights accessibility errors and warnings visually on the page
axe DevTools — browser extension from Deque that integrates with developer tools for detailed issue identification
Google Lighthouse — built into Chrome DevTools, includes an accessibility audit as part of its standard report
Pa11y — open-source command-line tool for automated accessibility testing

Manual Testing Approaches

Automated tools typically catch about 30-40% of WCAG issues. Many accessibility problems require manual evaluation:

Keyboard-only navigation — unplugging the mouse and attempting to use the entire website with just the keyboard
Screen reader testing — using VoiceOver (Mac/iOS), NVDA (Windows), or TalkBack (Android) to experience the site as a blind user would
Zoom testing — increasing browser zoom to 200% and checking that content remains usable
Content review — evaluating whether language is clear, links are descriptive (“Read our accessibility guide” vs. “Click here”), and heading hierarchy is logical

Overlay Tools: A Note of Caution

Accessibility overlay products — widgets that add a toolbar to a website claiming to “fix” accessibility — have become common. Many accessibility professionals and advocacy organizations have expressed significant concerns about these tools. Multiple lawsuits have been filed against businesses using overlays, with plaintiffs arguing the overlays don’t actually achieve compliance and can even interfere with assistive technology.

The general consensus among accessibility experts is that overlays are not a substitute for building accessibility into a website’s foundation.

What Compliance Typically Involves

For most Houston small business websites, reaching WCAG 2.1 AA conformance involves a predictable set of steps:

Audit — identifying existing accessibility barriers through automated scanning and manual testing
Prioritization — addressing the most impactful and highest-risk issues first (forms, navigation, core content)
Remediation — making the technical changes to resolve identified issues
Documentation — publishing an accessibility statement that outlines the business’s commitment and current status
Ongoing maintenance — incorporating accessibility checks into the regular website update process

For a typical small business website, the process often takes 2-4 months from initial audit to conformance. More complex sites with e-commerce functionality, large document libraries, or custom web applications may require longer timelines.

Settlement costs for ADA website lawsuits typically range from $5,000 to $50,000, plus attorney fees and remediation expenses. Many businesses find that proactive compliance costs significantly less than reactive legal response.

The Houston Landscape

Houston’s business community is diverse — from energy sector companies in the Galleria area to restaurants along Westheimer, medical practices in the Texas Medical Center to retail shops in the Heights. The accessibility conversation touches all of them.

What many Houston business owners are realizing is that accessibility isn’t just a legal checkbox. It represents a growing segment of customers who either can’t use inaccessible websites or choose not to. The CDC estimates that 27% of adults in the United States have some type of disability. In a metro area of over 7 million people, that represents a substantial market.

The businesses getting ahead of this trend aren’t treating accessibility as a burden. They’re recognizing it as what it fundamentally is: making sure their digital presence works for everyone who wants to become a customer.

That’s not just compliance. That’s good business.