Web Accessibility Gets a Boost In California Court

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.

Even if you aren't disabled

[Z00L00K]

some sites are next to hopeless to use from a usability point of view.

Not only is the layout wildly different from site to site, but also the semantics. And sometimes the access to some services aren't in a menu at all but hidden on a specific page that you don't really think it would be.

Target might do something surprising

[rastilin]

How long until Target figures out that very few people actually use their website compared to the trouble of all these lawsuits. As has been mentioned by other posters, it's quite possibly a browser config and interpretation issue. So, these lawsuits might never stop, so why not just block all access from these IP ranges?

There are incidences of mass lawsuits invoking the disabilities act even against stores which comply with it. It's not something that you can feel happy defending against and odds are that you're missing at least something somewhere, as such, it's not entirely unprofitable for the people doing it. It's not that I'm saying Target should be excluded from following guidelines, their website seems pretty unusable if you're disabled, but I am reminded by a lawsuit I'd heard about previously "hearing impaired sue Quantas for unusable phone booking system". Considering it would be infinitely easier to order from stores which ARE accessible, this screams of a shameless cash grab.

how hard can this be?

[Doppler00]

I mean, aren't all online retailers doing exactly the same thing? Selling stuff. You have a database of stuff. Different fields, etc... you just plop them in a template. So you have a regular website template and one for disability. Is that so hard? The only problem is, that people don't think about these things upfront and it leads to bad design.

Which makes me think, do they have standards documents for creating a disability accessible website? What all is involved? And what about amazon's "look inside" function? There is no way a text to speech algorithm can read those books because they are images.

Re:Even if you aren't disabled

[leenks]

Or how do I (reliably) block all users from California?

Or there is the alternative

[davmoo]

The end result could be mandated accessibility for for all Web sites reachable by visually impaired users in California.

Or it could begin a wave of website owners deciding "this shit isn't worth it", and they either turn off their site entirely or at least block known California IP ranges.

Re:Federal Government Intrusion

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

I know that Libertarians like to pretend it isn't true, but there are some things that are good for society that would almost never happen under the free market. If 0.5% of Target's customers are blind (a decent estimate), it might not be profitable for Target to go to the expense of assisting them. But if all businesses came to the same conclusion, we'd have a completely inaccessible society, and everyone with a disability would be forced to either live on social security or have a generous person assist them with everything in life. It's not only cruel, it's also worse for the overall economy if these people can't live independently.

Requiring businesses to make reasonable accomodations to the disabled is not intruding, it's really reducing the amount of our tax dollars that need to be spent helping those who can't live independently. This is in addition to the fact that in our society we believe that everyone should be treated equally, even when it requires extra effort to do so.

Re:Stupidity and Lobby

[jbengt]

"Zero support from me for regulations of this kind on private business."

If your a completely private entity, those accessibility rules would not apply. But for businesses open to the public, there's a long history of discrimination that has been held as improper ("Irish need not apply" help wanted signs, real estate deeds preventing sale to Jews, "Whites Only" lunch counters, etc.) and the state and federal governments have the legal power to force you to be open to everyone if you're not a completely private club. That has been extended to handicap accessibility in the 70s and 80s. Most of the things required are cheap when accounted for in the planning stages, e.g. set your light switches 48" above the floor rather than 54" or 60", use lever handles rather than knobs, grab bars in bathrooms, ramps instead of steps, and so on. And a lot of those improvements can be helpful for those without major disabilities, too.

There is some compromise built in to those laws and building codes, for example, you are not going to be forced to add a ramp to your 19th century building (no 14th century buildings in use here in the USA) unless you're doing extensive remodelling (IIRC 50% of the value of the building in Illinois). Making changes to a website that probably changes all the time anyway does not fall into the kind of cost category that adding an elevator would. So I have zero sympathy for a publicly accessible commercial web site that doesn't try to provide accessibility to all those it can.

IANAL, YMMV, etc.

Re:This smacks of bullshit...

[Anonymous Coward]

Discriminating would be refusing entry to blind people, or going out of your way to disable blind people from using the website. Why are they entitled to special treatment? Why must retailers go out of their way to cater to every last disability? It does not take extra effort to build a ramp or use blue paint instead of yellow, so that's reasonable. However, it takes a lot of work to make a site accessible to the blind. Why must everyone carry the burden of the disabled, except for the disabled?

Why aren't the blind suing stores that don't have braille labels so they can tell Frosted Flakes from Rice Krispies from Target brand corn flakes? It's a more legitimate "problem" than not having alt tags. Why aren't the handicapped complaining that retailers aren't pushing their chairs or carrying them? Why aren't the deaf complaining about lack of retail employees that understand sign? Where does one draw the line between non-discrimination and going overboard?