WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the de-facto legal standard for ADA Title III web accessibility, and Connecticut businesses are not exempt. Connecticut Website Company hard-gates every site we ship behind an axe-core scanner that blocks any critical or serious violation before deploy. The differentiator: we treat accessibility as a launch requirement, not an after-the-fact retrofit — because per the Seyfarth Shaw 2025 ADA Litigation Report, web-accessibility lawsuits hit over 4,000 federal filings in 2024 with a 37% surge in H1 2025 alone.
Wait — is my Connecticut business actually at legal risk?
Yes. The ADA's Title III applies to 'public accommodations,' and US federal courts (including the 2nd Circuit, which covers Connecticut) have repeatedly held that business websites are public accommodations. You don't need a physical store to be sued. Plaintiff's firms in New York and California file the bulk of these — but they target businesses nationwide, including Hartford restaurants, New Haven retail shops, Stamford service businesses, and Bridgeport medical practices. A demand letter typically asks for $5,000 to $25,000 to make the case go away. That's before legal fees.
What is WCAG 2.1 Level AA in plain English?
WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is published by the W3C. Version 2.1 Level AA is the standard cited in nearly every ADA web case. It boils down to four principles, abbreviated POUR — Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust. In practical terms, your site must be usable by someone who is blind, by someone who can't use a mouse, by someone who is colorblind, and by someone using assistive technology like a screen reader.
Per the Seyfarth Shaw 2025 ADA Litigation Report, web-accessibility lawsuits hit over 4,000 federal filings in 2024 with a 37% surge in H1 2025. CT businesses are routinely targeted.
What does my CT website actually need?
- Every image has descriptive alt text (decorative images get alt="")
- Color contrast meets 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text
- Every form field has a programmatically associated label
- The whole site is keyboard navigable — Tab, Enter, Escape work everywhere
- Focus states are visible (the dotted/blue ring around buttons) — never CSS-stripped
- Headings follow a logical order (H1 → H2 → H3, no skipping)
- Links say what they go to — never 'click here'
- Videos have captions; audio has transcripts
- Tap targets on mobile are at least 44px by 44px
- Page has a sensible <title> and lang="en" on the html element
Can't I just install one of those accessibility widgets?
No. Overlay widgets — accessiBe, UserWay, EqualWeb, and similar — have been called out repeatedly in ADA filings. Plaintiff's attorneys treat overlay-only sites as worse, not better, because the widgets routinely break screen readers in new ways. The U.S. Department of Justice has explicitly stated that automatic accessibility tools are not a substitute for actual conformance. If you're paying $49/mo for a widget and nothing else, you have not solved the problem.
How does Connecticut Website Company actually enforce this?
Two layers. At authoring time, eslint-plugin-jsx-a11y catches alt text, ARIA, label-for, tabindex, and role misuse the moment we save a file. Pre-deploy, we run @axe-core/playwright across every URL in the sitemap at both mobile and desktop viewports — any critical or serious violation hard-blocks the push to production. There is no skip flag. No 'we'll fix it next sprint.' On top of that, our team manually checks the ~60% axe can't catch — keyboard flow, screen reader output, cognitive load. The audit lives in the project's review folder as the audit trail.
If you're paying $49/mo for an accessibility widget and nothing else, you have not solved the problem. The DOJ has said so explicitly.
What about my existing Wix or Squarespace site?
Most off-the-shelf templates fail multiple WCAG criteria out of the box — common offenders are insufficient color contrast, missing form labels, decorative-image redundant-alt fails, and stripped focus states. The platform itself is not the problem; the templates and any custom CSS are. If you're on Wix or Squarespace, run the free axe DevTools browser extension on your home page right now. If you see anything red, you have exposure.
What does compliant cost?
If we're building from scratch, zero — accessibility is baked into our template and our review pipeline. If you have an existing Connecticut site that needs remediation, we typically scope it at $1,500 to $4,500 depending on size and how deep the issues run. Compare that to a $5,000 to $25,000 demand letter and the math is obvious. The DOJ's stated guidance is that 'remediation is far less expensive than litigation.'
What about WCAG 2.2 — is that the new standard?
WCAG 2.2 was published in late 2023 and adds nine new success criteria — the most-discussed are 2.5.7 (drag movements need alternatives) and 2.5.8 (tap targets minimum size). US case law still cites 2.1 AA as the litigated standard, but we build to 2.2 AA today because it's a superset and the regulatory direction is clear. New CT sites we ship are 2.2 AA conformant.
Want us to audit your existing CT site?
Send us your URL. We'll run our axe-core scanner against your full sitemap and email you a Markdown report inside 24 hours — free, no commitment. If the report is clean, you'll know. If it isn't, we'll quote the remediation cost on the same email. Don't wait for the demand letter.
Rich Conway
Founder · 25+ yrs CT broadcast radio