A demand letter arrived in your inbox this morning. You are not alone. Other small business owners get them too. Here is what WCAG 2.2 AA actually means for your site and why the letter is not the real problem.
The pain in one sentence
Screen reader users cannot buy from your site. Mouse-only users cannot navigate your menu. Low-vision users cannot read your text. When the site does not work, they leave. Some of those visits turn into demand letters. That is the real price of an inaccessible website, both for the users locked out and for the business that needs to fix it.
What the standard actually is
WCAG is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Version 2.2 was published by the W3C on October 5, 2023 https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/. The “AA” conformance level is the threshold the U.S. Department of Justice referenced when it published the final Title II rule on April 24, 2024 https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/24/2024-07758/nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-disability-accessibility-of-web-information-and-services-of-state. Title II covers state and local governments. Title III covers private businesses, including most e-commerce and service sites https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/title-iii-regulations/.
In plain terms, the standard is a checklist for whether your site is usable by people with disabilities. The categories that directly affect how users with disabilities experience your site:
- Color contrast between text and background, plus non-text contrast for icons and UI components.
- Keyboard navigation, so a user without a mouse can reach every link, button, and form field.
- Focus appearance, so keyboard users can see where they are on the page (a new criterion in WCAG 2.2).
- Target size, so touch targets on mobile are large enough to tap accurately (another 2.2 addition).
- Image alt text, so screen reader users hear what your product photos and infographics show.
- Form labels (distinct from placeholder text), so screen reader users always know what data a field expects.
- Button labels, so an icon button (search, cart, menu) speaks its purpose.
- Heading structure, so screen reader users can navigate the page by its sections.
A non-developer can find several of these by reading the site as a stranger and asking, “could I do this without a mouse?”
What it does not mean
WCAG 2.2 AA is not a certificate. There is no government-issued seal. No vendor can sell you “compliance” as a finished product. The FTC’s April 2025 order against AccessiBe made that exact marketing claim a settled misrepresentation https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/2223050-accessibe-ltd. Vendors promised an overlay widget would prevent lawsuits. The order bars that claim going forward. The business owners who purchased those widgets relied on vendor claims that turned out to be misleading https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/2223050-accessibe-ltd.
So when a salesperson tells you their tool will satisfy WCAG requirements or address ADA exposure, those claims are the warning. The standard does not work that way.
What you can do this week
- Run a free automated scanner against your site. The output is not a final answer, but it tells you which of the most common issues are present on your pages.
- Fix the high-frequency categories first: image alt text, color contrast, and form labels. These are the violations most commonly named in demand letters and the easiest for a non-developer to triage.
- Save your scan reports with dates attached. If a demand letter ever lands, a documented remediation timeline is what your lawyer needs.
- Do not sign anything that admits liability before your lawyer reviews the letter https://www.ada.gov/resources/small-businesses/. Use the response window in the letter to talk to counsel first.
- Call a lawyer who has handled ADA Title III defense before. Not your cousin who does real estate closings.
When you still need a human expert
Automated tools find what shows up in HTML and CSS: missing labels, weak contrast, unlabeled buttons, broken heading order. They do not catch whether your checkout flow actually works for a screen reader user, whether your product descriptions are written for someone who cannot see the photo, or whether your video has accurate captions instead of auto-generated ones. Those require a human review. For a site that sells to the public, that review is the part that matters most when the case lands in front of a judge or a settlement table.
Lewca’s scanner reads your site’s DOM and identifies the patterns that match known WCAG violations, and the site admin decides which fixes to commit. Lewca fixes common WCAG violations automatically. Full compliance requires human review. The scanner is the starting point, not the finish line.