The Legal Reality Behind Website Accessibility: What Every WordPress Business Needs to Know
This week, we’re attending WordPress Accessibility Day 2025—the year’s most important WordPress accessibility conference. We’re sharing insights from sessions that matter most to businesses navigating the increasingly complex accessibility compliance landscape.
Understanding the Lawsuits That Keep Happening
Vanessa Tillemans , founder of POURPIS , delivered one of the conference’s most eye-opening sessions: “Accessibility Lawsuits in WordPress: The Violations Every Business Needs to Know.” With deep legal insights and multiple accessibility certifications, Vanessa walked through the harsh realities of website accessibility litigation—and the numbers are staggering.
Over 5,000 accessibility lawsuits are expected to be filed in 2025. And here’s what shocked us: In 2023, more than half of all web accessibility lawsuits targeted just two platforms—Shopify and WordPress. WordPress alone accounted for 700 lawsuits, nearly one in five cases filed that year.
Why WordPress Sites Are Legal Targets
The pattern is clear. E-commerce sites on template-driven, plugin-heavy platforms face heightened vulnerability. Why? Because the harm is concrete and measurable. When a customer can’t complete a purchase due to accessibility barriers, that’s a clear denial of access under the ADA.
The industries facing the most lawsuits tell the story: fashion and retail led with over 1,100 cases, followed by restaurants and food services with 885 lawsuits. Most troubling? Small and mid-sized businesses are the primary targets—local shops and organizations that may not realize the ADA applies to their digital presence until a lawsuit arrives.
The Widget Problem: False Security at a High Price
Here’s a critical insight from Vanessa’s session: In 2023, nearly one in four ADA website lawsuits were filed against sites that already had an accessibility widget installed. The three most frequently named widget providers appeared in 666 cases combined—AccessiBe (348 cases), UserWay (246 cases), and AudioEye (72 cases).
Why are sites using “accessibility solutions” still being sued? Because widgets don’t fix underlying issues. They overlay existing barriers rather than removing them. Research shows these tools can actually interfere with assistive technologies, creating worse experiences for users with disabilities. The National Federation of the Blind has explicitly spoken out against widgets, calling them barriers rather than solutions.
Even more concerning: some widget companies themselves now face legal action. AccessiBe was fined $1 million by the FTC over marketing practices, while UserWay faces a class action lawsuit alleging misleading compliance claims.
The Violations That Land in Court
Vanessa detailed the most common accessibility violations cited in lawsuits. These aren’t obscure technical requirements—they’re fundamental barriers that exclude users:
Missing alt text on images prevents screen reader users from understanding visual content, including critical information like product details and sale prices.
Keyboard navigation barriers trap users who can’t use a mouse, making entire websites unusable for people with motor disabilities and blind users with screen readers.
Inaccessible forms block transactions when fields lack proper labels, error messages aren’t connected to the right fields, or forms can’t be completed with a keyboard.
Missing video captions and descriptions exclude deaf, hard of hearing, and blind users from content that sighted, hearing users access instantly.
Low color contrast makes text unreadable for users with low vision—and frustrates everyone else too.
Why This Session Matters
What made Vanessa’s presentation particularly valuable was her focus on the legal foundation behind accessibility lawsuits. Understanding Article III standing requirements, Title III of the ADA, and circuit court precedents isn’t just academic—it’s practical knowledge that explains why some lawsuits proceed while others get dismissed.
The message is clear: accessibility can’t be achieved through shortcuts or third-party overlays layered onto inaccessible code. Under WCAG standards and ADA requirements, accessibility must be built into the website by default—in the code, in the content, and in the design.
Looking Forward
Vanessa also covered emerging federal and state legislation that will reshape digital accessibility requirements. HR 3417, the Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act, could establish clear nationwide standards aligned with WCAG, closing legal loopholes that have fueled uncertainty and litigation. Meanwhile, states like Kansas and Illinois are passing laws to prevent abusive litigation while preserving the rights of individuals with disabilities to pursue valid claims.
The future of digital accessibility isn’t about avoiding lawsuits—it’s about recognizing accessibility as what it truly is: a right to information, a right to participation, a right to access.
