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Website Accessibility a Legal Issue?
Posted by
Cliff
on Wed Mar 22, 2006 06:24 PM
from the possible-consequences-if-it-is dept.
from the possible-consequences-if-it-is dept.
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:
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?"'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.'
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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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DUH (Score:2)
Re:DUH (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Accessibility not just for the blind. (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Accessibility not just for the blind. (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Accessibility not just for the blind. (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Accessibility not just for the blind. (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:DUH (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, "putting all your content in <div> tags" (you mean elements, not tags) is only going to harm the accessibility of
CAPTCHA is a biggie (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:CAPTCHA is a biggie (Score:3, Interesting)
But will a judge agree? (Score:4, Interesting)
I know a blind guy going into computer science who thinks any blind person who doesn't have a friend who will get em past a CAPTCHA doesn't belong on said website.
Unless the blind person lives alone and the site needs a CAPTCHA for every transaction. For instance, as of the beginning of 2006, Blogger required this for every post [google.com]. Some sort of landmark case of the form American Foundation for the Blind v. (some major site) might have repercussions in the field of spam prevention.
Parent
Unfortunately, yes. (Score:2, Flamebait)
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.
Re:Unfortunately, yes. (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly why is Target responsible for this students civil rights online?
Until someone passes a law requiring businesses on the internet to
ADA Does Not Apply to Websites and Videogames... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:ADA Does Not Apply to Websites and Videogames.. (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Parent
Sometimes impossible... (Score:4, Insightful)
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?)
Re:Sometimes impossible... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Freedom of Association maybe? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Accessibility is easy (Score:4, Informative)
Completely UN-informative (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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)
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.
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:
If we can make websites work with all the browser, (Score:3, Insightful)
who happen to need a bit of accommodation.
As suggested in a recent
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)
ADA Website Compliance = Section 508 (Score:3, Interesting)
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/e
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.
Re:sue the screen reader companies (Score:3, Informative)
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