Level Access discusses the major trends in digital accessibility.

1. Digital Accessibility: It’s All We Do
2019 Digital Accessibility
Trends, Mid-Year Update
Tim Springer
July 11,2019
Level Access | Confidential and Proprietary

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3. Introducing Our Speaker
Tim Springer - Founder and CEO
Tim Springer has dedicated nearly two decades to ensuring that
technology will not only meet regulatory standards but also support
real world use by individuals with disabilities. As a leader in the digital
accessibility industry, he has provided compliance solutions to
thousands of organizations as well as advised large corporations and
Federal agencies on technical challenges and best practices required to
successfully achieve accessibility. Tim was named named a White
House “Champion of Change” in 2014.
3Level Access | Confidential and Proprietary

4. Topics
1. The Big Picture
2. Laws and Enforcement
3. Technology
4. The Accessibility Industry
5. Contacts
4 | July 11, 2019

5. The Big Picture
Main stream trends driving
accessibility

6. A Graying Globe
People are getting older… and actively
use technology!
• The number of people worldwide
aged 80 and over will quadruple
to 400 million by 2050
• For the first time in history, there will
be more people over the age of 65
than under the age of 1
• 20% of the U.S. population will be
over 65 by 2030
“42% of adults ages 65 and older
owning smartphones is up from
just 18% in 2013.”
“67% of seniors use the internet –
a 55-percentage-point increase in
just under two decades.”
“45% of seniors under the age
of 75 say they … use social
networking sites, compared with
20% of those ages 75 and older.”
Sources: United Nations World Population Prospects, U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 National
Population Projections, McKinsey & Co., Pew Research Center Tech Adoption Climbs Among
Older Adults
An Aging Nation: The Older Population in the United States, U.S. Census
6 | July 11, 2019

7. Disability Prevalence By Age
55.8%
37.5%
29.6%
24.7%
20.4%
13.8%
7.3%
5.3%
70.5%
53.6%
42.6%
35.0%
28.7%
19.7%
11.0%
10.2%
80 and over
75 to 79
70 to 74
65 to 69
55 to 64
45 to 54
24 to 44
15 to 24 With a disability
Severe disability
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation
7 | July 11, 2019

8. Omni-Channel Commerce
• e-Commerce
− 10.2% of all retail in Q1 2019 (U.S. Census Bureau)
− 9.2% of all retail in Q1 2018 (U.S. Census Bureau)
− Estimated by eMarketer to hit 14.6% worldwide by 2020
• Retailers and retail service providers developing
strategies that are
− Multi-device
− Integrate physical and digital experience
− Multi-modal
• Will plaintiffs’ attorneys do the same?
− Initial demand letters target mobile apps starting to be sent out
8 | July 11, 2019
Graphic: eMarketer (2016), NRF State of Retail (2019), U.S. Census Bureau (2017)

9. eCommerce Drives Down Prices
• Prices at online stores are falling faster
then prices in real world stores
• This means access to online shopping
and eCommerce becomes an economic
advantage
• Food for thought
− Does the presence of Airbnb in a market
drive down hotel room prices?
− Does the presence of Uber drive down
taxi prices?
9 | July 11, 2019
Graphic: Internet Trends Report (2018), Adobe Digital Economy Project

10. The nature of work is shifting
• 1 in 3 Americans freelanced this year
• Americans spend more than 1B hours per week
freelancing
• 64% of freelancers found work online
• Number of freelancers is growing rapidly
− 53.0M – 2014
− 56.7M – 2018
• Those jobs are increasingly available online and
intermediated by technology platforms
• Leads you back to a question we asked earlier – is
accessible technology now an employment issue?
10 | July 11, 2019
Flexibility is cited as the largest, non-work cash related reason to be a freelancer
Graphic: Freelancing in America Edelman Research, Upwork (2018)

11. To thrive in the economy we need access to
learning opportunities
• Massive growth in online training
resources
• Employees increasingly see training as
the path to advancements
• Freelancers far more likely to update
skills rapidly than non-freelancers
11 | July 11, 2019
Graphic: Internet Trends Report (2018), Intuit

12. Laws and
Enforcement
The risk remains real

13. Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA)
State of the Law
• At least 2,258 digital accessibility cases filed in
2018
• Different judges, different cases, different rulings
• Slim on precedent, principally fact based
• Vast majority of cases settle
• Appellate decisions starting to trickle out of the
Ninth and Eleventh Circuits
• Supreme court petition for review in Dominos v.
Robles
“We will continue to see a rise in
litigation in federal court as we've seen
over the last couple of years simply
because there continues to be a lack of
clarity with regard to the ADA
requirements and I think until there's
clear guidance this trend will continue.”
- Olabisi Ladeji Okubadejo,
Of Counsel, Ballard Spahr LLP
“Each time a new [case] comes out,
whichever side you’re on, you’re going to
point to it and say that’s good news.
Ultimately, cases are still coming down
different ways depending on the judge.”
- Kristina Launey,
Partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP
13 | July 11, 2019
Source: ADA Title III

14. ADA Lawsuits
Overall Trends
• ADA digital accessibility litigation
continues to accelerate dramatically
• Increased 210% YoY in 2017 and 177%
YoY in 2018
• Still a small percentage of overall ADA
Title III lawsuits
• Number of plaintiff firms filing lawsuits
continues to expand
• Idea: The supply of lawsuits is governed by the
number of active plaintiffs counsel in the space
• Takeaway: We expect growth will
slow but still be robust going forward
2722
4436 4789
6601
7663
10136
13135
17020
15 19 57 262 814
2258
3392
5094
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
16000
18000
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
ADA Title III Lawsuit Breakout
ADA Title III Lawsuits Web Accessiblity Lawsuits
Source: ADA Title III
14 | July 11, 2019

15. What firms are responsible?
15 | July 11, 2019
• The top twenty plaintiff firms accounted for
74% of the lawsuits filed in 1H 2019
• Average top twenty firm – removing Cohen &
Mizrahi LLP – filed 12 more cases in 1H
2019 than 2H 2018
• 28 lawsuits -> 40 lawsuits / firm
• We’ve tracked another fifty-three firms active
in filing lawsuits in 1H 2019
• As firms filing fewer suits catch up with the
top twenty firms filling rates expect ongoing
growth in the number of lawsuits
• ~ 6000 lawsuits / year in capacity with
the current set of plaintiff firms
• Takeaway: We still see much room for growth in
plaintiff firms filing suits of this type
Plaintiff Counsel 2H 2018 1H 2019 Δ
Cohen & Mizrahi LLP 296 85 (211)
Gottlieb & Associates 53 85 32
Lipsky Lowe LLP 52 75 23
Scott R. Dinin P.A. 78 74 (4)
Law Offices of Nolan Klein, P.A. 21 68 47
Shalom Law, PLLC 23 56 33
The Leal Law Firm, P.A. 71 50 (21)
Law Office of Pelayo Duran, PA 23 45 22
Thomas B. Bacon, P.A. 19 45 26
Stein Saks, PLLC 0 38 38
Lee Litigation Group, PLLC 33 34 1
Law Office of Drew M. Levitt 39 32 (7)
Pacific Trial Attorneys 12 29 17
Roderick V. Hannah, Esq., P.A. 33 27 (6)
Shaked Law Group, P.C. 52 27 (25)
Manning Law, APC 2 23 21
Garcia-Menocal & Perez, P.L. 32 20 (12)
The Sweet Law Firm, PC 0 19 19
Lee David Sarkin 4 18 14
J. Courtney Cunningham PLLC 14 17 3

16. How Do These Lawsuits Work?
Digital Accessibility Trends
• Specific plaintiff attorneys, specific industries
• The data suggests firms target lists of companies and file
lawsuits in “waves”
• Lawsuits typically only cite automated testing results
directly generated from tools
• Lawsuits discuss usability of the site by people with
disabilities – Which is very different
• Follow-on discussions limited to automated testing results
Pick a consumer facing
Industry
Pull a list of all the companies
Run a spider on the homepage
of each company
Send out a form demand letter
with a summary of spider
findings in it
Wait for a response
File a batch of lawsuits
Takeaway: Automated testing results (good or bad) strongly
correlated with risk of digital accessibility lawsuit filing
16 | July 11, 2019

17. ADA Digital Accessibility
Lawsuits
Target Industries
• List of industries with raw count of lawsuits in 2H
2018 versus 1H 2019
− We look at 60 industries
• Retail and consumer facing services continue to
dominate
− Drastic uptick in Hotels driven by three firms
• As we start to reach saturation in some industries
expect new industries to be opened
• Takeaway: Outsize risk in industries that are (i)
consumer targeted and (ii) relate to a physical
place of business
17 | July 11, 2019
Industry 2H 2018 1H 2019 Δ
Hotels 229 318 89
Retail 229 256 27
Consumer Products Manufacturers 148 159 11
Consumer Services 142 122 (20)
Restaurants 73 51 (22)
State and Local Government 53 48 (5)
Food and Beverages 49 35 (14)
Transportation 29 32 3
Real Estate 27 27 -
Banking 22 15 (7)
Hospitals and Healthcare Providers 28 12 (16)
Media 13 10 (3)
Financial Services 8 7 (1)
Colleges 33 6 (27)
Cultural & Religious Institutions 0 6 6
Business Services 5 5 -
Education Services 10 5 (5)
Other 4 5 1
Electronics 1 4 3
Telecommunications Services 3 4 1

18. Other Takeaways
• Multiple lawsuits or demand letters against a single organization are common
− Winner in our database had five lawsuits filed in the last 12 months
− We estimate a roughly 30% chance once you’ve been sued you’ll be sued again in a year
• Bigger the brand the bigger the risk
• Lawsuits tend to target brands and specific properties
− Multi-brand entities are often targeted many times in a year
− Multi-property entities are often targeted many times in a year
• Expertise matters – you need to have an actual, qualified expert engaged if you expect
to end up in court
• ADA Title I litigation may occur against technology providers – more news
to come
18 | July 11, 2019

19. Department of Ed OCR Complaints
• Challenge in getting data on this
− No DoED OCR reports in current
administration
− Last DoEd report in fiscal 2016
− No data published for fiscal 2017, 2018 or
2019
• Since October 1, 2013 901 resolution
agreements or letters referenced WCAG
− No change in this number since January
2019
• Note: There’s a lot of bad data out there
confusing OCR investigations and ADA
lawsuits so proceed with caution
4183
4555
4961 4980
4806
5936
6366
6828
3651
4019
5349
9 7 88 88 25
593
1273
2048
1460
2009 2139
9 7 8 16 28 55
233
561 532
914 973
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 (EST) 2018 (EST) 2019 (Feb) 2019 (July) 2020 (EST)
Accessibility and Disability Related Issues
All Disability Complaints Technology (Est) Web (Est)
Takeaway: We expect enforcement by DoED OCR to be
limited on digital accessibility issues
19 | July 11, 2019

20. Technology
Accessibility goes mainstream

21. Lots of people play video games
• 164M adults in the US play video games
• The average of a gamer is 33 years old
• 63% play video games with others
• 2.5B worldwide
− China is the largest gaming market in the world
• U.S. consumers spent $43.4B on video games last year
− ~100B Worldwide
Source: Entertainment Software Association (ESA), U.S. Census Bureau, JD Hancock, Pew Research
21 | July 11, 2019

22. Virtual and augmented reality
• Helping people on the autism spectrum
recognize emotions
• Providing facial recognition for people who
are blind or visually impaired when
combined with AI
• Highlight walking area and path for users
with low vision
• Overlaying tutorials or instructions for people
with cognitive and learning disabilities
• Providing cues and steps to assist people
with memory challenges
22 levelaccess.com | (800) 899-9659 | info@levelaccess.com
A great assistive technology platform?

23. Rise of Virtual Assistants
• Conversational, computer-generated
personas provide contextual voice- or
text-based information to users
• In everything from speakers and
glasses to cars and kiosks
• Combine natural language processing
with domain knowledge and AI
• Benefits for IoT, searches, shopping,
and third party skills
23
Siri, Alexa and Cortana take over

24. The Accessibility
Industry
How our industry is maturing

25. The Survey
• Recently released The State of Digital
Accessibility 2019 report
− Developed in partnership with G3ict
• Surveyed 550 digital accessibility
professionals
• Wide range of industries, roles and
organization sizes
25 levelaccess.com | (800) 899-9659 | info@levelaccess.com

26. The Industry Wants Standards
• Over 85% want the ADA
updated to include specific
regulations for digital
accessibility
• 54.6% said they are
accelerating their
accessibility plans due to
the current litigation trends
26
What legal and compliance respondents said

27. Where Accessibility Lives
27
Accessibility is Everyone's Job– but someone has to own it.

28. Accessibility as a Value
• Over 65% said it was “very important”
for them to be compliant with
accessibility standards in their
industry
− Competitive impact of inclusive products
in marketplace
− Acknowledgement of accessiblity as core
value
28
Rather than a response to legal risk…

29. Inclusive Maturity
• 72% of companies with
5,000 employees have a
dedicated professional
overseeing accessibility
• 31% ask employees to be
IAAP certified and 47%
would consider it
29

30. WCAG 2.1
• WCAG 2.1 adoption is proceeding at a
measured pace
− Disability rights advocates starting demand
it in complaints and settlements
− Not currently slated to be a rolled into
Section 508
− Highly likely to be included in EU standards
• WCAG 2.1 criteria impact design of
products
• Clearly expands testing to automatic
variations of pages
30
64% are already
adopting WCAG 2.1
guidelines or plan
to in the near
future

31. Challenges for Accessibility Programs
1. Incorporating accessibility earlier in the development lifecycle
− #1 challenge for product, UX, and engineering folks
2. Budget for accessibility program
− High on list for each role
3. Training
− Majority of developers ranked their team as beginners and some groups such as marketing
had almost no a11y training
4. Too many content creators – can’t monitor everything
− Biggest challenge for higher education
5. Development time
− Competing needs for time
31
The Top 5 Themes
levelaccess.com | (800) 899-9659 | info@levelaccess.com

32. Testing includes People with Disabilities
• Nearly half of product
development teams do
not conduct usability
testing by people with
disabilities
• Larger organizations
more likely to perform
testing with users that
have disabilities
32

33. Connect with us.
@LevelAccessA11y
linkedin.com/company/level-access
facebook.com/LevelAccessA11y/
1.800.889.9659 | info@levelaccess.com | www.levelaccess.com
Digital Accessibility: It’s All We Do
Thank You
Contact Us
Tim Springer
Founder and CEO
tim.springer@levelaccess.com
Level Access | Confidential and Proprietary

34. Appendix - The EU
Digital accessibility for products
and services in the EU

35. European Union Public Sector Law
• Web and app accessibility required in EU public sector
• Rule formally approved in July 2016 by European Council and
entered into force December 22, 2016
• Requires public sector websites and mobile applications meet
European accessibility standards
• Beings the process of normalizing access requirements across the
EU
− More information: access our on-demand webinar, The EU
Directive on Digital Accessibility
35 | July 11, 2019
Background & Overview
Source: European Council, “Accessible websites and apps for all: Council adopts first-ever EU-wide rules”, July 2016

36. European Union Public Sector Law, Cont’d
Background & Overview
• Requirements refer back to European procurement Standard EN 301 549
− European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) recently revised
and harmonize EN 301 549 with WCAG 2.1 AA to cover technical
requirements for mobile apps (v 2.1.2 released August 2018)
• All websites created after September 23, 2018 have to conform by September 23,
2019
• Existing websites will have to conform by September 23, 2020
• Mobile applications will have to be accessible by June 23, 2021
• Ideally unification of all EU requirements by 2022
• Expect private sector coverage to harmonize with these requirements
− Recommended but not required by EU law
• Takeaway: Expect Section 508 like requirements to seep into EU public sector
procurements over the coming years
Source: European Council, “Accessible websites and apps for all: Council adopts first-ever EU-wide rules”, July 2016
36 | July 11, 2019

37. European Accessibility Act
• Approved by parliament on 13 of
March 2019
• Final text still to be approved by
council
• Once published in Official Journal
nations have 3 years to transpose
into national law and 6 years before
application of standards
• Exceptions for small micro enterprise
<10 employees or $2 million in
revenue

38. European Accessibility Act
• Final adoption by EP is expected by April
2019
• Two years to transpose
• Six years to enter into force
• Takeaway: Expect EU wide coverage for
digital accessibility by 2025
Coverage
• Computers and operating systems
• ATMs, ticketing and check-in machines
• Smartphones
• TV equipment related to digital television services
• Telephony services and related equipment
• Audiovisual media services such as television
broadcast and related consumer equipment
• Services related to air, bus, rail and waterborne
passenger transport
• Banking services
• E-books
• E-commerce
38 | July 11, 2019