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Should Online Stores Be Subject To ADA?
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Nov 06, 2006 01:16 PM
from the accessibility-rising dept.
from the accessibility-rising dept.
prostoalex writes, "HTML tutorials usually mention alt tags for images and noscript tags as something optional that a Web designer should add to a site for the crawlers and users browsing with graphics or JavaScript turned off. However, a recent lawsuit against Target by the National Federation of the Blind accuses the retailer of not complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Since Target's online store is unbrowsable with a screen reader, the nation's 200,000 blind people who go online cannot become paying customers, the NFB contends. From the article: 'In denying Target's motion to dismiss the suit two months ago, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel... held that the law's accessibility requirements applied to all services offered by a place of public accommodation. Since Target's physical stores are places of public accommodation, the ruling said, its online store must also be accessible or the company must offer equally effective alternatives.' Does the judge's name ring a bell? Yes, it's the same Marilyn Hall Patel who handled the RIAA's case against Napster in 2001." Web builders and tools may need to start brushing up on the Web Accessibility Initiative.
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Your Rights Online: Judge Rules Sites Can Be Sued Over Design 709 comments
BcNexus writes "According to the Associated Press, a California judge has ruled that a lawsuit brought against the Target Corporation may proceed under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The catch here is that the suit, leveled by the National Federation of the Blind, concerns the design of Target's website. Could this set a precedent and subsequent flood of lawsuits against websites? What if another design is not tractable?" From the article: "'What this means is that any place of business that provides services, such as the opportunity to buy products on a website, is now, a place of accommodation and therefore falls under the ADA,' said Kathy Wahlbin, Mindshare's Director of User Experience and expert on accessibility. 'The good news is that being compliant is not difficult nor is it expensive. And it provides the additional benefit of making accessible web sites easier for search engines to find and prioritize.'"
[+]
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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About Time! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's got my vote. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
flash doesn't work. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:About Time! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:About Time! (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Probably just as well... (Score:5, Insightful)
-b.
Re: (Score:2)
Yet GMail is faster than SquirrelMail. By your logic, that shouldn't be the case. SquirrelMail is simpler, has less dynamic components, and is more compatible with accessibility standards. Why is it slower?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can assume comparible servers, and GMail will still win every time. In fact, any webmail provider using a "classic" webmail design is likely to show up slower than GMail, even if you assume the same hardware and bandwidth.
The difference is that all that AJAXian voodoo is actually doing something more than making everything look pretty. It's responsible for transferring only the information necessary to update the display. Nothing more, nothing less.
Marilyn Hall Patel... (Score:2, Informative)
Market (Score:2)
Why, sure, the market will fix this one. (Score:2)
Just like the market solved Jim Crow. No intervention by the government necessary at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Market (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't care that people with wheelchairs can't get to the second floor of the Gap sometimes, then this is fine. If you do care, then it's not. Sort of a personal judgment call on how you feel about government intervention to protect the less fortunate.
Regardless of how I might feel about forcing retrofits (not a big fan), setting standards before establishments are built seems somewhat reasonable (and it's usually not all that expensive if you plan on doing it from the beginning). Having rules established ahead of time is basically the same as having building codes, and just as onerous.
With regard to the ADA and websites, it seems that the internet is not at all what was envisioned when the ADA was drafted and it should be looked at anew. If you want to set rules for website design, it has to be clear what those rules are going to be before design begins. Forcing major sites to redesign after they're established seems mean spirited and expensive. If this is something that people feel strongly about, they can go back to Congress and draft an amendment. Courts are probably wise to stay out of the way until then.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In this case there certainly is a market, but it leads to results we don't like. The problem is that the extra profits gained from selling to a small minority (the disabled) are probably much less than the expenses in accomodating them. Therefore it is rational for most retailers to simply ignore the disabled. Of course t
No (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing one should require is to stick a div tag with CSS to make it invisible at the very very top of the site, that says "If you are a disabled person using a screen reader to navigate this page, and wishes to make a purchase, dial the following number and talk with one of our friendly representative who will be happy to help you, and give you any web-only discounts you deserve".
Otherwise, if you ever thought IE6 was holding the web back, never freagin mind screen readers. If your page is nothing more than documents with information, and maybe 1 form (which I guess a lot of e-commerce stores are), then go ahead and make it accessible. Its not very rough. But depending on your target audience, it very well might be a desktop-like application with all the wiz and buzz that it implies, and there's simply no way to make that accessible without ruinning your normal user's experience. And if you DO manage to make it accessible, it will be in the terms of the law only: it will still be useless a to a blind person. Those laws are out of date, simple as that: they consider the web as being nothing more than a giant e-book. It doesn't work like that anymore.
Re:Spoken like... (Score:4, Insightful)
Spoken like an old web page designer who hasn't seen what the web can do.
Again: if all I'm doing is a standard web page, thats fine. Its pretty easy (to some extent). Being purely XHTML compliant doesn't make you accessible, and there are some things in some situations that are pretty rough to deal with.
That being said, as soon as you use something like, let say, Ajax (I use this as an example because everyone heard of it, and from your post you really don't seem to realise what people have used the web for these days, so I won't go in any more details), screen readers don't pick up the refresh, and thus its not compliant. So woohoo, I have to kiss ajax good bye. If I was using Ajax to refresh a dropdown list or something, thats easily remedied. If I'm doing something akin to Google Calendar in features, making an "accessible" version can take months.
Again: The Web is not a giant e-book reader anymore.
Parent
Incentives (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no one forcing them to care about normal customers. So they don't. But because t
Absolutely not (Score:2)
Unequivocally, yes (Score:2)
C'mon (Score:2)
Let market forces work it out. These companies will lose business because of the accessibility problems, and probably also because of unfriendly interfaces. Money talks to business far better than lawmakers, and it's a language they can speak that doesn't require translators.
The ADA is one of those "nice intentions" laws that, for every wheel-chair ramp added to a school has 20+
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, we all know how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made discrimination problems worse. And who needed that Emancipation Proclamation anyway? Unnecessary government intervention in private market matters.
Sounds Reasonable (Score:2)
Fund the Mandates (Score:2)
Likewise, if our government is going to require websites to comply with ADA, our government should offer free software and validation testing for easy compliance. That's a lot more cost-effective (and just effective) than spending time and money forc
Interesting Ruling (Score:2)
It would seem to me that the disabled, blind or otherwise would be more prone to use internet services to begin with. The fact that retailers haven't seen this and adapted already is interesting into itself.
Re:ADA is bad law (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Flash = tyranny of the clueless.
I'm no fan of the ADA, but anything that puts Flash developers on the streets with signs saying "Will skip intros for food" is OK by me.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Put them in solitary confinement until they can fill out a 500 page webform explaining why they should be released. Every page has a non-skippable flash intro, the answers on the form are maintained by session cookies and the form is only accessible by a very noisy 14.4 dialup connection that can't be re-established without closing their browser.
It's not life imprisonm
Re: (Score:2)
Well, anyway, interpretations of ADA are taken too far. There are some things that handicapped people just cannot do - that's the very definition of a handicap. Should we require rock-climbing equipment stores to accomodate double amputees?
-b.
Re:ADA is bad law (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, use of a relay operator is becoming common for scammers, etc. to hide accents and out of area calls.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
(Or they could just make a .html version, but ...)
Re:ADA is bad law (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, in California, we have a statewide, free, public relay service so that TDD users can communicate with anyone with a phone with no problem, so its not an issue. I thought that was fairly common, and not unique to California.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's an interesting parallel case. However, in this case, the law requires that the PHONE company (and hence you) find a way to make the PSTN work for the deaf. There are organizations (names escaping me right now) that have non-deaf operators that provide the interface between the deaf and the non-deaf worlds: if you are deaf, you call these operators via TDD, and they make a voice call to the destination, translating back and forth.
Just getting STARTED, my friend! (Score:3, Funny)
No! Every store should have to employ someone who signs in American Sign Language (and every other dialect too, of course, in case you get a foreign handicapped person) to be ready to answer a video conference call. Also, in case of a Helen Keller type situation, you'll need someone who can spell things out in brail, real-time. Also, if that
Re: (Score:2)
You'll sing a different tune if you go blind... (Score:2)
"Georgia, Georgia, The whole day through Just an old sweet song Keeps Georgia on my mind...."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Is a law bad because it requires businesses to accommodate ALL customers, regardless of whether or not they can see, hear or walk? Or are you a part of the group of pseudo-libertarians who think that government should butt out?
If it wasn't for ADA, my wife (who is confined to a wheelchair) and I would be extremely limited in where we go, what we do, and where we can shop, eat, or stay.
So it seems a bit ridiculous to you that Target was the target, and they want them to make the site a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Welcome to capitalism.
Re:ADA is bad law (Score:4, Interesting)
At all the new parks in the city, the picnic tables are 1) missing one of the seats and 2) have tables mounted neck-high so you can run a wheelchair underneath them. The furniture is very uncomfortable for the 99.9% of the normally-abled public.
The ADA had the right idea but the implementation has been a nuisance.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
These accesibility laws are not about making special exceptions to handicapped people. It's simply allowing handicapped people to live, participate, and work to contribute to themselves and their community just like e
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
(Applause)
It _is_ a special exception. But it's a relatively _small_ investment on the part of the business owner which makes a HUGE difference in the independance and quality of life of the disabled. What society gains is a change betwe
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It is absurdly difficult to accommodate screen readers.
They are undetectable, and cannot be sniffed.
Therefore, you have to assume that potentially anyone coming in can be using a screen reader. You have to program extra code, but not too much extra code, or the screen readers will be reading "spacer" "spacer" "spacer" for three hours. You need to have noscript, and noembed tags in everything, and offer an alternate text version of your site that needs to be up to date
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you keep to standards and don't defecate non-semantic pseudo-HTML from your crutch of a WYSIWYG editor, then it's really easy. Alt tags are required by HTML 4 and XHTML - they're not optional. Non-Javascript alternatives reduce support costs - for instance, you don't have able-bodied twits phoning up, asking why a particular section of their website doesn't work just because they disa
Is it? (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the law's provisions is that service animals are largely unilaterally allowed in places of public
accomodation. My wife is disabled as was our housemate at the time. They both have service dogs- certified
as such. Service animals aren't just seeing-eye or deaf dogs, there's a lot more there than that- and they
do actually help out in a lot of ways and you can't just arbitrarily separate them from their owners willy-nilly.
Needs to be very sp
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)