Web Accessibility Gets a Boost In California Court 283
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.
Re:Yay lowest common denominator (Score:5, Insightful)
Because most people believe the disabled have a right to equal access to services as everyone, firstly because those who use assistive technologies have no choice and secondly it's not their fault. Not only that but there's really no excuse for designing an inaccessible site, it's not difficult, in fact in most cases it's easier. Inaccessible usually means Flash/Javascript/IE only sites, which not only stops access for the disabled but for those of us who hate Flash/Javascript/Internet Explorer too, it also implies the Web designer/developer is incompetent.
There are circumstances where it's impossible to cater for people using assistive technologies: like wheelchair access to listed buildings (not uncommon in Europe) or prohibitive cost for small businesses to provide wheelchair access, I don't think Web sites are one of them though.
Think of it this way: do you use Firefox? Do you think all Web sites should work given your chosen technology? Or is it your job to somehow adapt to people who only code for Internet Explorer? Is it their fault that you don't use Internet Explorer? Frankly too bad on you. Life sucks. Now imagine someone's showing you that attitude, yet your body is setup such that you can't use anything but Firefox. If you ever go blind from looking at too much Natalie Portman smothered in hot grits I hope you remember your post.
Back on topic: the biggest problem I see for site owners is CAPTCHA as screen readers can't read the majority of CAPTCHAs out there, everyone had better make sure the system they use allows for a sound file alternative. reCAPTCHA [recaptcha.net] looks like a good service, you get to encode books at the same time as fighting spammers! Personally haven't used it on a project, but did notice the sound file alternative link.
Re:Yay lowest common denominator (Score:4, Insightful)
At some point almost everybody suffers a "life sucks" moment, and we create rules to try and fairly take care of people during those instances. If you have a genetic defect, why can't health insurance companies deny you coverage? If somehow you lose your job, why are you allowed to get out of debt by filing bankruptcy?
Sure life sucks, that doesn't mean society can't help with "reasonable accomodation."
Re:Yay lowest common denominator (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't really know the answer, but I can offer you some speculation: If you're offering your services to the general public, then you'd be unfairly discriminating against disabled people. (This is assuming, of course, that the changes are reasonable. Ramps leading to the doorway aren't the same as denying wheelchair access to a roller coaster.) Now, that's a little broad/extreme, so I'll water it down a bit. A place like Target sells everyday needs to a broad range of people. If a wheelchair-bound person cannot buy something like toilet paper, they're in trouble. I think the idea is to make the world a little easier on people that have these problems.
"Why isn't it their job to somehow adapt? Is it my fault someone else can't see, hear, walk, or think clearly? Frankly, too bad on them. You got a shitty roll of the dice. Life sucks."
Well, I suppose that's one way to look at it. Unfortunately, that's not something you'd be saying if you were stuck in a wheelchair. Those people with a shitty roll of the dice are doing the best they can with the technology available to them to continue to lead a productive life. If common everyday tasks are difficult because a big company like Target didn't spare a little extra expense to resolve the issue, it becomes offensive. "Why is it so frickin hard to build a ramp?! I just want some f'n toilet paper!"
Okay, that's wheelchair access to a physical property, so that example doesn't work well in this discussion. So what about this particular case? From what I've gathered, they could, without a lot of effort or expense, update their site to work for the blind. They're not doing that. In theory, they could just take their business and move on to Wal-mart or Amazon or something. But the problem is that disabled people have had to fight battles like this for decades. If they don't win something like this, the risk is other companies will ignore them because they're not big enough to be profitable.
Life sucks for these people, but it doesn't have to. That's the point. When a little more thought goes into the design of a building or a webspace, it makes life easier for everybody, but it also makes life livable for those with disabilities. Life can suck. That roll of the dice can happen to you at any time.
Re:Even if you aren't disabled (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess is that one of the questions which will start getting asked is "how do I block visually impaired users in California?"
This smacks of bullshit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hmmmm (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, I just noticed Slashdot now has an "[mp3]" option for the captcha.
Re:Yay lowest common denominator (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is blind. Are you aware of how many people tailor Web sites for that thing?
I have a sneaking suspicion you've never used a screen reader, nor are you a proficient Web designer. Where the text is on the page is irrelevant, as long as the page has good structure: headings, lists, blockquotes, em tags, strong tags etc. a screen reader will be able to read it perfectly well. The Web is for communicating information, text is the best way of achieving that in most cases and where images are used all that's needed are the trivial additions of alt tags to provide a quick description of what the image contains.
Re:Yay lowest common denominator (Score:1, Insightful)
A blind person not being able to access a website is simply unfortunate, just as it is for, say, a retarded child. It's nobody's fault that they can't use the information being presented. I guess that's the point -- it's *nobody's fault*. And nobody should have to answer to a lawsuit over something that isn't really their fault. I mean, this is slippery slope stuff. Today it's a store website, tomorrow you're being sued because your personal blog isn't 100% compliant with W3C standards on accessibility, that sort of thing.
So tell me, what happens if you are a Firefox-only user, and you run across a site that only supports IE? Do you sue? Equality in this country has always meant "equal opportunity", which is not a guarantee of anything, it just says that you can't be denied just because of your status. For example, it would be unethical if Target's website popped up a question "Are you blind?" or "Are you Korean?" and then denied you access merely because you answered "yes". But if their website is available to anyone who can make use of it, then they're not discriminating against anyone. What's next is a guy suing McDonald's for not providing kimchee or something, therefore McDonald's discriminates against people who eat ethnic foods?
Nobody ever said that being blind was easy. Problem in this country is that being handicapped now gives you *entitlement* to special treatment. Thousands if not millions of dollars are spent every year by government and corporations on catering to special needs, which may or may not ever be used. Instead of requiring individual websites to make things readable by the blind, maybe, just maybe, it would be a lot more logical and efficient to ask software providers to write generalized translators that can be used on any website. I can't imagine that such software doesn't already exist. Why don't the blind use that software?
Re:This smacks of bullshit... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Target makes 0.1% more profit this year, no one gives a crap. But if one million Americans who can use a wheelchair are suddenly able to live their lives, this makes a significant difference in the world. (And yes, blindness and business websites can be considered the same as wheelchairs and physical buildings, hence the analogy.) Leave your idealistic philosophy at home and consider the real-world impact of your ideas.
Re:This smacks of bullshit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This smacks of bullshit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This smacks of bullshit... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:This smacks of bullshit... (Score:3, Insightful)
IMG tag inside a H1-H6 tag (Score:2, Insightful)
"They probably use IMGs instead of H1-H6 tags, either because they are using a non-standard font, or some design in the headings. There are a few workarounds for this. You can use H1-6 in your markup, and replace it with images in the CSS (assigning an ID to each H1-6.)"
Actually, it is easier then that. Just simply put the IMG tag inside of a H1-H6 tag and make sure the ALT option has text. If the image is not used, the ALT text will show up in the H1-H6 font and style. Also screen readers and site indexers can still identify the H1-H6 without a problem. Coding a decent quality page that is accessible to the blind is not that difficult. You just can't do it with a clueless "web dork" (term coined by a former co-worker) and a WYSIWYG editor. Or a desktop publishing person who fills the page with images or Flash.
I think you're trolling, but here's your answer. (Score:5, Insightful)
Free enterprise works pretty well - when everyone decides to spend money in whichever way satisfies their greedy nature, resources get allocated fairly efficiently.
But this is not always the case. For example, if you run a manufacturing business that produces toxic chemical waste, depending on how greedy your nature is, you may choose to just dump your waste in the nearest river. While this works well for you in the short run, it works well for no one in the long run if all businesses operate that way because soon everything would be too polluted to use. So we have government regulations that say 'Hey, if you make waste, you have to pay to dispose of it properly', and then the costs of that get passed on to the consumers of the product that caused the generation of the waste in the first place.
Did you see how that worked? In this case, government regulation ENHANCES the proper allocation of resources, by making sure the entire costs of manufacturing a product is borne by those who use the product.
Legally mandated disability access works in a similar manner. For any given business, the direct cost to them of maintaining access for the disabled may not balance out just not accepting that business in the first place. But, if we don't require that all businesses make reasonable efforts to be accessible to the disabled, then very soon no businesses would be accessible to the disabled. And that's a problem for everyone - because now instead of having disabled people, who through reasonable accommodations made to them are independent productive members of society, we now have disabled people who are essentially locked up in their homes, unable to participate and contribute to society, where we then have to either divert our tax dollars to support them, or let them starve to death (or in the very least, let them out on the street to beg).
Secondary to that, disability access is a bit like health insurance. While most of us are not disabled CURRENTLY, it's quite possible something might happen where we become disabled in the future. An accident, a disease, or shit, we could just get old, and not be able to walk or see as well as we used to. So, as a society, by deciding to make reasonable accommodation for the disabled, we also ensure that in the event we ourselves become disabled in the future, access is available to us. We may not ever need it, but if we do, we'll be glad we have it.
Another point to note here is that web accessibility is NOT just about seeing-eye-dog-blind people. Some people can't see very well just because they get old and lose their vision. That's probably not as big a deal now because most older Americans don't use computers anyway, but in 20-30 years, it'll be quite important as the internet generation starts to lose their eyesight.
Re:Yay lowest common denominator (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This smacks of bullshit... (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, I wheel crippled people to restaurants and to doctor's appointments, I've taught blind and deaf relatives both practical matters and technical ones. Failure to make reasonable concessions to accessibility cuts them off from social, economic, and political opportunities. It's penny wise and pound foolish: a store as large as Target, which dominates the commerce in entire towns or neighborhoods, bears a legal and social responsibility to serve that entire community.
Re:This smacks of bullshit... (Score:3, Insightful)
When an affected group is as small as the population of blind online shoppers, the natural boycott by only that group is meaningless, especially if they aren't shopping there to begin with. The ADA is an amplifier for small groups to bring access problems to the attention of others so they can change or help or anything that they wouldn't know or want to do otherwise.
Re:I think you're trolling, but here's your answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think you're trolling, but here's your answer (Score:3, Insightful)
A manufacturer who doesn't properly handle toxic waste is violating the rights of the persons upon whom the toxins impinge. Laws should identify those rights and devise a method for ensuring that rights are not violated (and compensating those whose rights are violated).
A business that doesn't provide handicapped access is violating no-one's rights; the property is privately owned and any visitor is there by permission, not by right. Providing handicapped access should be entirely the decision of the property owner, laws to the contrary notwithstanding. Freedom includes the right to be nasty and suffer the consequences.
Re:hmmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
"but what are the "and headings are missing that are needed for navigation"?"
I would guess that means things like tables are missing properly formatted (meaning they can be picked up by the naked eye) headers. There are numerous accessibility guidelines that websites are generally required to follow, unfortunately many developers are completely unaware of them or put them at a very low priority. Its more fun to develop that neat web 2.0 javascript widget than it is to ensure all your inputs have properly formatted labels.
"Also, the shortcut keys that didn't work seem to be more of a browser-related config issue than anything, so I don't see how Target could be held responsible."
What that generally means is that the page isn't following the correct conventions, so the browser isn't able to pick up how the page is supposed to be rendered. For instance, from looking at the page today (after they made their so-called improvements), this is how they display their search box:
Lets skip over for a moment that they still don't have alt text for that image. They do have a text label for their search box, problem is it is inside a div next to the input. Now that is easy enough for a user with vision to tell what it is talking about, but a browser with a screenreader cannot just look for text that is next to the input. They have to look for the associated <label> element, and in this case all that element contains is an image. So when the browser comes across the text input and the user uses the browser shortcut to tell them what the input is for, instead of reading "Site Search" it will probably try to describe an image and a hyperlink. What the page should have done is put the text in the label element and put the nice looking image with the hyperlink sit next to the input for sighted users to read.
Re:Fucking troll? (Score:3, Insightful)
You do your cause no credit.
There's nothing in that philosophy that says it's not perfectly OK to publicly call out a bunch of jackass robot-head mods for the dumbfucks that they are. In fact, it's remarkably consistent with the idea above [slashdot.org] that it would only take a few 'chair bound folks crawling into Target stores on their bellies with the media in attendance to change things. Public spectacle embarrassing the company, rather than federal bureaucrats. See the difference?
Re:This smacks of bullshit... (Score:2, Insightful)
How is it fair that they should be made to do something at great expense and inconvenience, and you should not?
Because they have more money than you do?
Should Bill Gates pay more for a cup of coffee at the your local diner than you pay for the same coffee?
Where is the cut-off between "must provide access" and "not required to provide access", and how do you determine it and justify it?
Re:This smacks of bullshit... (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how /.'ers are libertarian until (Score:3, Insightful)
FREEDOM OF CONTRACT PEOPLE. GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR LIVES! LIBERTARIANISM IS NOT JUST ABOUT WIRETAPPING!
Re:This smacks of bullshit... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you then advocating apathy as a method for positive change?