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Website Accessibility a Legal Issue?

Posted by Cliff on Wed Mar 22, 2006 05:24 PM
from the possible-consequences-if-it-is dept.
Government The Courts The Internet
geekwithsoul asks: "Target is being sued because its website is not usable by the sight-impaired. While this story from the San Francisco Chronicle is from February, I've seen surprising little coverage of it in either mainstream or tech-focused media. Is the threat of legal action the only really effective way to get companies to create accessible (and thus standard-compliant) websites?"
"From the article:
'Advocates for the blind said the lawsuit is a shot across the bow for retailers, newspapers and others who have Web sites the blind cannot use. They chose Target because of its popularity and because of a large number of complaints by blind patrons.'
Considering how much accessibility and standards support is available in modern web browsers (well, except for that one we all know), and a rising probability of legal exposure for sites not meeting these needs, is there really any excuse for online retailers and others to not make their websites accessible to all?"
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[+] News: Web Accessibility Gets a Boost In California Court 283 comments
The Register is reporting on developments in a California court case pitting blind users against the retailer Target over the lack of accessibility of Target.com. (We discussed the matter on two occasions last year.) The case is being brought under a federal statute, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and two California laws that are somewhat broader. Even though Target has made improvements to the site since losing the first phase in court, the judge has just ruled that the case is eligible for class-action status. The end result could be mandated accessibility for for all Web sites reachable by visually impaired users in California.
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  • In a world where executives are liable for actions that adversely affect the bottom line it certainly is required. Accesiblity for the blind likely costs more than it generates in revenue.

    • Re:DUH (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jafiwam (310805)
      True, but where does it land when "accessability for the blind" also means "can be listed easily by search engines" is factored in?

      Accessablity is something that goes pretty close hand in hand with Googlebot, Guliver and all the other spiders out there being able to get around within the site. So it's a good idea to do the work as you get both blind users and a good indexing.

      There is too much fancy crap in a lot of web sites anyway. I don't visit target to see fancy HTML and flash. I visit to buy stuff.
    • You make it sound as though accessibility for the blind is a bad thing.

      Consider what websites or programs need to do in order to be usable by a blind person. First of all, they can't have clutter. They need to obey standards. (eg. W3C, for websites) They need to have a good, well-designed user interface, in general.

      Notice how all of those things have very positive results for regular users, too? Blind people probably see websites much as a regular user would see them through a text-only browser like lynx. I
        • I'm unconvinced either way about this. On the one hand, it is nice to have the freedom to use whatever web technology we like.

          On the other hand, isn't this the same as the government specifying that people with disabilities must be catered for in real life? Why should things be any different on the internet?

          Should all buildings have wheelchair ramps? To an extent, I think so, yes. Obviously it would be ridiculous for all homes to have wheelchair ramps. What about stores, shopping centres and government buil
          • Well, as a state institution (community college) at work we have to be ADA compliant with all our services (online classes, registration system, etc). I think *any* government site should be fully accessable to everyone (and they shouldn't be allowed .coms... they have .gov, .us, .mil, etc) and should be done with Open standards and formats.
            • Absolutely. Otherwise you have second-class citizens (if they don't support open standards), and government divisions that are not obviously part of the government. (when they start using .com)
              • wtf? Misfortune?

                I have a friend who's completely blind and uses the web a lot. Some sites are a major pain and some are completely inaccessable, but most are reasonably accessable to him using yasr and links. Very few sites now require msie and he's pretty-much given up on Windows. 98 is unstable, upgrading to XP would require a faster computer and a later version of JAWS which is mega-expensive.. We're still waiting for a useable version of gnopernicus but one of the great things about Linux is that almost
        • You didn't keep your eye on the ball. Its already a law in the US that all federal websites must be accessible to all persons. Including those with some form of disability (such as blindness, hearing impairment and so on.)

          http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Con tent&ID=3 [section508.gov]

          Why shouldn't blind people be able to access a website just as easily as a sighted person? In the UK its as good as law that a site be accessible to persons with sight or hearing disabilities. I personally have no problem with
    • From the outside, that does sound right, however, having had to learn how to put together websites that had to pass ADA (American Diabilities Act) and w3c-Level 1 compliance for accessibility I can really say that the basic steps for this kind of compliance actually make your web pages better organized, and easier to use for all.

      On the other hand, going down a path popular in the XHTML camp, where you put all your content in DIV tags organized in a logical sequence then use CSS to position everything (see h [zengarden.com]

      • Re:DUH (Score:3, Informative)

        by Bogtha (906264)

        On the other hand, going down a path popular in the XHTML camp, where you put all your content in DIV tags organized in a logical sequence then use CSS to position everything (see http://www.zengarden.com/ [zengarden.com]), not only will you have a document that is parse-able by a screenreader but that same document is going to be indexed more thoroughly and faster by search engine robots.

        Actually, "putting all your content in <div> tags" (you mean elements, not tags) is only going to harm the accessibility of

    • Accesiblity for the blind likely costs more than it generates in revenue.

      The same could be said for wheelchair ramps and automatic doors. Does that make it OK for buildings to exclude them?

  • A major problem in the accessibility of the World Wide Web lately is CAPTCHA systems [pineight.com] that distinguish sighted humans on the one hand from bots and blind humans on the other. For instance, Slashdot itself uses a CAPTCHA. Has anybody had success in getting a Slashdot account created through the e-mail method specified in the Slashdot CAPTCHA's alt text?

  • Unfortunately, yes, suing will often be the only way.

    Don't forget that too many websites are driven by marketoids whose world revolves around bullshit. Bullshit being the absence of substance, it is clear that those bullshitter will try to hide their absence of content behind smokescreens made out of Javascript and flash.

    And marketoids consider themselves artists, and there are no people more willing to shove useless crap down people's throats than artists.

    • A blind UC Berkeley student has filed a class-action lawsuit against Target Corp., saying the retailer is committing civil-rights violations because its Web site is inaccessible to those who cannot see.

      The lawsuit, ..., said the upscale discounter's on-line business, target.com, denies blind Californians equal access to goods and services available to those who can see.

      Exactly why is Target responsible for this students civil rights online?

      Until someone passes a law requiring businesses on the internet to

      • Suing a large company doesn't gain my sympathy.

        But it is a lot faster.

        Asking your Senator or Congressman means you have to get them to make a bill, introduce it, get it passed, etc. That is a long process. And that assumes that you can get them to do that over the corporations that don't want that bill passed (and will donate more money than you'll ever make).

        Filing a lawsuit gets you instant publicity, which can be parlayed into capital to use with your representative to get a bill passed. Either way, t

  • It's that simple. They are under no legal obligation to do so. If you read the article, this isn't specificly about Target, this group is trying to make some broader point and is using the legal system to do so and they picked Target because of it's popularity. There are better ways to go about this than a nusaince lawsuit.
    • I stand by my statement; the ADA does not apply to websites and videogames. Government agencies are different, as all of their services must be accessable, which makes it their responsibility only by proxy. There is absolutely nothing in the ADA about electronic access as it would apply here. I was involved in a battle over video game accessability, and the ADA does not cover electronic accessability in any way, shape, or form when it comes to things like this. For instance, someone who only has the use
          • To further your analogy, this is like some company selling you a hearing aid, you take it to a Greatful Dead concert, but you still can't make out the words clearly...so you sue the band instead of the people who made the poorly performing product.

            No no no, you don't understand.

            This is America. You sue the band for making you need the hearing aid in the first place AND sue the hearing aid company for a poorly performing product. If you're good, you also sue the venue and the band's promoter. If you're real good, sue the city who gave them a permit to perform in the first place! After all, their loud music damages hearing (see case #1 for the precident) and thus is a known dangerous product. :-)

  • Sometimes impossible... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Southpaw018 (793465) * on Wednesday March 22 2006, @05:30PM (#14976190) Journal
    Sometimes, it's just not possible at all. My boss, for example, asks - rather, demands - that our organization's website be accessible to them in Dreamweaver. The problem is this: My pages are WAI A compliant and written in XHTML 1.0 Strict, XHTML 1.1, and CSS 2.1. The moment they hit "save" with Dreamweaver, it rewrites half the damn code in the page, changing indentations, switching out tags, and often changing things that weren't really any of its concern in the first place, adding CSS classes with names like "L1" instead of "bluebox" and inserting p tags everywhere. I'm left with a Microsoft-as-Borg kind of choice: assimilate and use Dreamweaver, or be defeated.

    I try to create standards compliant, accessible websites, but the boss is worried about any emergencies that might pop up and require their immediate attention. Without being able to pull away from programs that change the pages around and aren't really aware of standards, I may not be able to do it at all.

    (Side note: if anyone knows how to force the 'Reaver to leave my code alone, could you reply, please?)
    • Do you do CJK work? I don't see what advantage XHTML 1.1 has for you over XHTML 1.0 Strict unless you are using type ruby. In fact, you have to serve XHTML 1.1 as application/xml+xhtml, which IE can't parse, while with XHTML 1.0 Strict there's the blessed loophole that still permits text/html.
    • Dreamweaver does do some annoying stuff with your code, but not "the moment you hit save". I've been able to get around most of these issues in Dreamweaver MX 2004. What version are you using? Rather than go into specifics, I suggest you use the split code/design window and take note of exactly when Dreamweaver does its crap. Then, you can learn to avoid those traps or at least undo them when you run into them. While still annoying, Dreamweaver is much better than FrontPage when it comes to this crap.

    • Re:Sometimes impossible... (Score:5, Informative)

      by geekwithsoul (860466) <geekwithsoul&yahoo,com> on Wednesday March 22 2006, @05:47PM (#14976345)

      I use Dreamweaver as well, and faced the same problem when I first started using it years ago. What you want to do is go into Edit > Preferences > Code Rewriting and deselect everything you don't want it to do. In addition, I also always turn off the auto close tag option under 'Code Hints' on the same dialog menu.

      Dreamweaver is actually very capable of turning out standards compliant and accessiblity friendly code, it just needs a little tweaking when dealing with less than clueful users. Macromedia [now Adobe] had been fairly responsive to the concerns of the standards community, specifically The Web Standards Project [webstandards.org] which had a task force focusing on just Dreamweaver and standards compliance.

    • I try to create standards compliant, accessible websites, but the boss is worried about any emergencies that might pop up and require their immediate attention.

      Dude, instead of backing down you should talk you boss about his concerns and - this is the important part - address them. You are being paid to do that. If he worries about emergencies that require him to change the company's website, I think it is your job to calm him down, provide alternatives, and fix shit.

    • Sounds to me like you should have a content management system, rather than expecting everyone to play web developer.
  • Hate to say it, but all of this politically correct stuff gets into freedom of association problems:

    Considering how much accessibility and standards support is available in modern web browsers (well, except for that one we all know), and a rising probability of legal exposure for sites not meeting these needs, is there really any excuse for online retailers and others to not make their websites accessible to all?"

    How about "We reserve the right not to do business with those we choose not to do business with without explaination?" This is about a lot more than just website accessibility- it speaks to (but probably won't come up) the constitutionality of the ADA itself.
    • How about "We reserve the right not to do business with those we choose not to do business with without explaination?" This is about a lot more than just website accessibility- it speaks to (but probably won't come up) the constitutionality of the ADA itself.

      Target can still decide not to let this guy -- or, even, any blind person at all -- conduct business with them. Having to make allowances for a disability does not keep you from turning people away.

      • Target can still decide not to let this guy -- or, even, any blind person at all -- conduct business with them. Having to make allowances for a disability does not keep you from turning people away.

        That might have been true prior to 1988, but since then, Target is subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1988 just like everyone else. If you can't write a website everybody can use, you might as well just rip out the wheelchair ramps, throw away automatic doors and lose the handicapped parking whi

  • How do you really convert a website for the visually impared? every time a picture is replaced, then its gonna make the site 1000 words longer (conservative estimate). I always do my best to include proper tags and the like, but i don't see how, for example, a graphic design company could apprioriately convey a subtle use of colour in an alt tag? or even if it would have any value.

    And where does it end? do all bilboards have to be in braile?

    What about a site which contains questionable material? should wh

  • Accessibility is easy (Score:4, Informative)

    by CRCulver (715279) <crculver@christopherculver.com> on Wednesday March 22 2006, @05:33PM (#14976218) Homepage
    The best way to ensure accessibility is to simply use XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS. Too often these are seen as overly-complicated technologies, but how hard is it to close a tag once you open it, and why doesn't the ability to describe visual styling in one central location instead of thousands of files seem like a hassle instead of a blessing? Get O'Reilly's HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide [amazon.com] and just see how much sense the elegant order and semantic meaningfulness of XHTML makes over prior markup solutions. Once you have a site up in XHTML 1.0 Strict, just make sure it validates with the W3C validator [w3c.org], and chances are, it'll already comply with Section 508.

    • The best way to ensure accessibility is to simply use XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS.

      There's no accessibility benefit to using XHTML 1.0 Strict. Most people are better off with HTML 4.01 Strict until browser support for XHTML is better.

    • XHTML and CSS have nothing to do with accessibility. HTML specifies that IMG tags must have an ALT tag -- but that doesn't mean that it's an accurate replacement for the ALT tag -- lots of people used to use them for tooltips. There's nothing in the HTML specifications against having your site being a giant blinking image -- there are in 508.

      I recommend against using XHTML -- too many problems w/ Internet Explorer (and even Safari will render some things slightly off what you're used to, even when it's co

  • In a country without useful legislation, yes. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Orrin Bloquy (898571) on Wednesday March 22 2006, @05:34PM (#14976231) Journal
    UK and Australia have a much smaller sense of humor about non-accessible websites. Here, the only organizations with a legal obligation are state and federal ones (I know, I design websites for one).

    To stay accessible, you need to ditch table-based HTML filled with JavaScript widgets and unnecessary Flash navigation. Consequently you need to explore CSS, and guess what hamstrings adoption of CSS's more advanced features?

    The other issue is the crap-awful screen reader market. JAWS ignores code designed to separate out screen readers from visual browsers, Apple's technology works only with Safari, and none of these companies have been sued for not doing their job either.

  • Yes (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bogtha (906264) on Wednesday March 22 2006, @05:38PM (#14976267)

    Unfortunately, there's a lot of ignorance to fight. The average PHB assumes that creating a website that the blind can use is an arduous task, but this is not the case. If you build your website correctly the first time around, you essentially get accessibility for free.

    If, on the other hand, your website was built by the average clueless Dreamweaver jockey, then you'll probably have to spend money retrofitting your website. But that's the clueless web developer's fault for doing it wrong in the first place. Sadly, it's in their best interests to tell the PHBs how hard it is, and the PHB's aren't qualified to know when they are being told a pack of lies.

    It's only in unusual circumstances that accessibility is difficult when you include it as a requirement from the start of the project. However, typical managers go on what they've been told, and what they are told leads them to avoid accessibility unless they really need to address it. Lawsuits are a good way of getting them to address it.

    Is the threat of legal action the only really effective way to get companies to create accessible (and thus standard-compliant) websites?"

    Don't assume that accessibility and standards-compliance are the same thing. They are not. You can create accessible sites that don't conform to the specifications, and you can create inaccessible sites that do conform to the standards.

    It's also worth pointing out that avoiding being sued isn't the sole reason to make your website accessible. It can often improve various semi-related features of your website, such as search engine rankings and usability. According to PAS 78, the accessibility guidelines published by the UK's Disability Rights Commission, Tesco and Legal & General got great returns on their investments into accessible websites.

    There's more information about that last bit on Bruce Lawson's weblog [brucelawson.co.uk]. Highlight:

    After a program of re-design using third party testers, they reduced their risk of legal action and found, as side-effects:

    • A 30% increase in natural search-engine traffic
    • "significant improvement" in Google rankings "for all target keywords"
    • 75% reduction in time for page to load
    • Browser-compatibility (not a single complaint since)
    • Accessible to mobile devices
    • Time to manage content "reduced from average of five days to 0.5 days per job"
    • Savings of £200K annually on site maintenance
    • 95% increase in visitors getting a life insurance quote
    • 90% increase in Life insurance sales online
    • 100% return on investment in less than 12 months.

      • At no point did I claim that it being good for you is the reason why it should be mandatory. Mandatory accessibility is intended to protect minorities, not nanny businesses.

  • Next up (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nizo (81281) *
    Smithsonian sued because they won't let blind people touch the paintings.
  • Does this mean that Dmitri Sklyarov [wikipedia.org] did a favour for adobe? [eff.org]
  • Ok, what kind of technology is out there for the visually-impaired to browse the web? I'm from a very rural southern town, and I've never heard of such a thing. What can Target do to remedy this?
  • Why are they suing Target (other than the fact that Target has the cash)? Shouldn't they be suing the screen reader companies who make such poor products that they are unable to do a passable job on complex websites? This seems like a problem that could very easily be solved by one perfect piece of screen reading software. I guess the issue is always money....if there was a huge market for screen readers, i'm sure IBM would have big R&D dollars pushing the technology. But as it is, crap readers suprisi
    • Now you want to sue people because they write software that doesn't work as well as you'd like? I can't wait for the rush of lawsuits against sourceforge projects...

    • This seems like a problem that could very easily be solved by one perfect piece of screen reading software.

      The biggest problem is the classical case of Garbage In - Garbage Out. The vast majority of pages out there on the web have no logical structure, no text equivalent content to non-text content - there's no way a piece of technology can do that without an advanced form of AI.

      This isn't a problem browser and assistive technology vendors can solve on their own. This isn't a problem web developers can

      • the issue is much more than alt tags. I've had the misfortune of trying to use a screen reader before just too see what the visually impared have to go through. Its horrible. alt tags or not, i cant even imagine having to do anything complex like booking a hotel room, or a flight, or buying something. I'll completely cede the point that web developers can do more to help teh situation, but thats the best that we can do...just help teh situation. Form my experience, teh state-of-the art in screen readers is
  • For those of us that use alternative browsers (because IE don't run natively on Linux, of course), can we sue companies whose sites dont show properly or are unusable in them?
  • In Ontario (Canada), it's legally required that web sites for government agencies, and government funded organizations follow the W3C's Accessibility Guidelines [w3.org] according to the Ontarians with Disibilities Act [cou.on.ca]. If you're making a website for anyone in Ontario who gets funded in whole or in part by the government, and you don't follow those guidelines, you can face massive fines.

  • If we can make websites work with all the browser, (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ivi (126837) on Wednesday March 22 2006, @06:55PM (#14976911)
    ...then we can surely do what it takes to make them work for people,
    who happen to need a bit of accommodation.

    As suggested in a recent /. article, developers just need to start
    communicating with Folks with Disabilities (FWD's, a.k.a. PWD's)

    It's just that easy. And... from experience... I can tell you:

    It can really make you appreciate what you take for granted, ie,
    finding out how life can be without sight or the ability to walk.

    Mind-expanding... a bit like emerging from one of those "gotta
    crawl on your belly" caves, on a spelunking trip...

    Both are better than drugs, I'd suggest...

  • I had a friend... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by alex_guy_CA (748887) <alex.schoenfeldt@com> on Wednesday March 22 2006, @06:56PM (#14976919) Homepage
    I roommate of mine a few years back was working for a major bureaucracy in the public transportation sector (please forgive my being coy. Normally I'd just blurt out the name, but in this case it's not my story.) She built a web page highlighting the specific work she was doing that was part of the larger corporate website. On her own initiative, she made her site compliant to the standards that blind computer users needed. Instead of being thanked for her efforts, she was ordered by her superiors to take down her page. They feared that her compliance would highlight the non-accessibility of the rest of the web site of the organization, and they were covering their asses.

  • ADA Website Compliance = Section 508 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jonathan_lampe (943581) on Wednesday March 22 2006, @10:19PM (#14978079)
    In the United States, ADA website compliance means Section 508.

    See:
    http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/guide/ [access-board.gov]

    How do I know? Before the U.S. Post Office looked at our web-based secure file transfer and messaging product (MOVEit DMZ), they required us to pass this requirement.

    You can see a short version of our "yes, we comply" statement online here:
    https://support.standardnetworks.com/moveit/doc/en /moveitdmz_generalinformation_federalregs_ada.htm [standardnetworks.com]

    Among the interesting bits: to meet full compliance we added an option that allows our administrators to add a "skip repetative navigation" link to the top of the page; this specifically allows audio readers to skip directly to the unique content on the page.
    • My experience is that web sites end up inaccessible because the people who create them simply don't think about the problem. As the developer on my team who actually thinks about such things, I have to remind other people why we can't have information only available coded with red vs green images in a table, why we shouldn't use JavaScript for navigational links unless we need to, why we shouldn't have organization structure only available as a big GIF org chart, and so on.

      A multi-million dollar judgement a

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