California may require websites to provide access to visually impaired users under ruling made in the long running case of the National Federation of the Blind vs Target.
The case centers on Target not providing basic accessibility to vision impaired users via the use of alt tags for images, keyboard options for navigation and missing navigation headers.
US District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in the Court for the Northern District of California had previously found that “the inaccessibility of Target.com impeded full and equal enjoyment of goods and services offered in Target stores” and has now ruled that the case is eligible for class action status, despite attempts by Target to have the case thrown out.
The result of the case will have far broader implications for the many startups and Web 2.0 companies operating in California, with many sites having to factor access into their services and sites or risk the prospect of legal sanctions.
Whilst the basics as easy enough: tagging images and making sure that sites can be accessed through text based browsers, the use of Ajax and other means of scripting sites means that the traditional html tagging may not either be available, or more difficult to implement.
There is some suggestion from the court case that accessibility may also be required under the Americans with Disabilities Act as well, meaning that although the ruling is currently focused on California law, it could extend to the rest of the United States.
More information on making websites accessible to those with visual impairments can be found at the American Foundation for the Blind.
(via El Reg)
So my little site, with a few tens of thousands of dollars for development, will have to waste precious capital on the chance that one or two blind people will want to feel pretty pictures?
In the last few years I volunteered with a local elementary school. They had a $13,000 annual budget for all office supplies and discretionary classroom spending. Teachers spent their own money on pens, markers and colored paper. Then an ADA-related lawsuit made the school district spend over $1.5 million to upgrade disabled access – at a school that already had disabled bathrooms, a working elevator, wheelchair ramps, etc. 100 years of their discretionary budget were wasted to give the school – I kid you not – disabled urinals. And still they go without classroom supplies, art instruction, physical education instruction, etc.
The ADA-chasers can go screw themselves.
A dumb law in california? No way
Duncan, slowly but surely regulation creep will sink it’s imperious claws deeper within the blogosphere.
Unfortunately … shades of things to come.
So many businesses already flee California due to over regulation and over taxation. I wonder when we will reach the tipping point when a mass exodus occurs and California tax revenues tank. It’s an opportunity for other states who can restrain themselves from over regulation, although that is pretty tough for governments.
Sounds like a great way to slow the pace of online innovation in the Valley. I, for one, might move back to NY if this sort of regulation starts creeping up on us. I just don’t have time to pay serious attention to issues like this until my site has proven itself viable for the long-term. I’m simply too busy working on improving functionality for the vast majority of my potential user base. It’s simply impractical, unless you’re a big ‘utility’ like Target.
Thats just stupid…whats next Driver licenses for the blind?
This isn’t stupid my any means. It is the right thing to do. If this requirement does become law be on the look out for optimization firms and code to meet regulations. It doesn’t have to be a pain to implement such requirements, unless people make it.
http://answers.nobosh.com
I wouldn’t call it stupid, but I wouldn’t call it practical either. Sure, most websites could stand to improve their accessibility (it’s really not that hard) but to make it a legal requirement is plain silly.
Quite right, California. A person’s limitations should be a burden on everybody else and impose all sorts of duty’s on society to meet their special needs…at no cost to that person, of course. Good show!
This is just another example of the needs of the one – no matter how ridiculous those so-called needs – will become a burden for the many. Yes, I do believe in making things accessible to the disabled, but there comes a time when cost and practicality – and good old common sense – needs to outweigh the vastly over-reaching piece of law known as the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Paco’s point about how the ADA leads to the spending of money in areas that override the mission of that area in which they are spent really hits the target – and Arrington’s point about an industry growing around this new ruling just goes to show how the ADA and other laws of its ilk are exploitable (though I do not believe that Arrington meant to be ironic).
The ADA can be a menace, and it can lead to some ridiculous circumstances (thankfully some more ridiculous than tragic, like school children going without supplies so one more toilet can be built). In fact, it was an implementation of the ADA – in a bathroom, no less! – that led to me starting my new web site!.
I’m not sure about this but I think the size of your business does affect what measures you have to take to become accessible. So for a company like Target, with vast resources, they would have to go to pretty great lengths to be accommodating.
This is how it works for building modifications. If your a tiny mom and pop business you are required to make your premises accessible within the constraints of your resources (which would be small). But if your a state government (with vast resources) you are going to have to make your buildings completely accessible, even if it’s a big expense. It’s all relative, that’s my understanding at least.
I see the trolls are out in force on this topic.
Folks, accessibility isn’t that hard if you’re sensible (even ajax techniques can be done accessibly) and ultimately actually makes your site more usable for EVERYONE! Not to mention the benefits from the “natural” search-engine optimisation of a well-marked-up website.
In my view, the onus should be on the makers of operating systems, perhaps in this case browser developers to accommodate the visually impaired.
That, and perhaps a requirement to meet web standards so accessibiltiy functionality in said browers work properly I think would a reasonable accomodation. Placing all the responsibiltiy on vendors like Target seems a little short sited, and yes, an impediment to the industry.
This isn’t a new law. They’re existing laws that a judge has ruled do apply to websites.
The questions to ask is what are the chances a disabled individual or group is going to sue you. And if there’s a good chance, what are you going to do?
If you answer “nothing,” then you deserve to be sued.
An accessible website does require a degree of human judgement — for example, when captioning pictures. Decent operating systems even have accessibility technologies built in. But they’ve got to work with something usable, which is where individual creators have to come to the table.
Look, before commenting further, would it kill any of you to at least skim a couple of chapters of, for instance, Mark Pilgrim’s “Dive into Accessibility” (free to read online) and get educated about what’s actually at stake? Because the ignorance levels on display are pretty disappointing.
So, how will this affect porn sites? LOL
Seriously though..this could potentially be a pain on photo hosting sites, etc. unless the law wouldn’t apply to “user generated” content.
It would be nice if everyone would take accesibility to heart, but the holdouts can always be crowdsourced to services like http://pornfortheblind.org/
Also @John above, this is no laughing matter and a problem we’re working hard to solve.
How Selfish. Instead of re inventing the wheel, all they have to do is ask a friend or family member to help them.
This could have implications in stifling creativity in Web Design. Flash navigation could all but disappear.
If you don’t like any one’s service – just do not patronize them. Don’t ruin it for everyone else!
Agreed. What is wrong with the concept of free markets, as our original democracy dictates? Capitalism also works in a free-market approach. If there are so many blind people (as I am also partially blind) that dictate enough demand in the marketplace, the supply will deliver. But to mandate a law saying every website must abide by these new design criteria just for the blind, is not free or open marketing. There are other means in which the blind can utilize the internet… I think in a capitalist society, a 3rd party marketer or company should engage in making a solution for the blind, instead of imposing rules on everyone else unecessarily.
http://www.blimptv.net
This is a bit strange. Do we also require magazines to bring out editions in braille? Or supermarket packaging to have a sound explanation? Sure it is a good idea to make things accessible to everyone, but certainly suing websites over not having text descriptions of their images is a bit ridiculous.
Thierry, the web is one of the few environments that CAN be made accessible with relatively little effort. Why are we so determined to deny even these simple concessions to the disabled?
Angelina, capitalism is historically very bad at inspiring people to do the right thing, which is why governments pay for hospitals and fire/rescue services. The point is also that there aren’t enough people with visual disabilities to form a market, so capitalist entities have to be forced.
“Miss Universe”, you seem to be suggesting that the disappearance of flash navigation would be a bad thing? That’s very funny! You were serious? Please allow me to laugh even louder!
@18: Oh no, Flash navigation is going away! The horror!
My similarly-named co-commentator Nick Caldwell is 100% right on. While I agree that this law applied generally might be impractical, it’s intentions are quite positive and will, if anything, result in higher quality code for everyone. Being ADA compliant is far from the only reason why you should worry about or consider writing accessible code.
Check this good article http://joeclark...es/atmedia2007/
“When accessibility is not your problem”.
Why not to use Opera and similar browsers to scale webpage size up to 1000%-2000% on 32” monitors if blind want to access sites and see everything?
Blind vs Target is another example of stupid American law system.
Dang, I just finished a really cool map-based app.
Now what do I do?
If the screen enlargement stuff is left to the user via some method like the one that Alex (@23) mentioned, I don’t think it should be so difficult to put in some alt tags for pictures and change up the ajax a little to accommodate.
The flash stuff I’m not sure how to handle. If California enforces this I’m sure they can also provide some council to help companies make their sites more friendly to visually impaired. I certainly wouldn’t mind making our site more accessible.
Changes in the Valley…actually the Valley is the place where all technologies change.
Nice article!
Hi folks.
This is an wonderfull blog.
I´ve puted a link in my colective blog
(http://atribula...s2.blogspot.com)
Thanks and continue this good work.
João
“Anna Smith” and “João” are comment spammers.
This kind of crap bugs me no end. I wonder if it will mean going back through thousands of our company’s archived blog posts and adding alt tags to photos that are mostly decorative illustrations and not important to the content. Our file names are more or less descriptive — I wonder if that counts.
What a joke.
Folks,
I strongly encourage reading the order before jumping to too many conclusions here.
According to the order, “…the court dismissed plaintiff’s claims to the extant that they are based on Target.com features that are unconnected to the stores.” In other words, the only ADA issues here have to do with items on the website that support in-store features. The plaintiff is arguing (and the court agreed) that they cannot access the full feature of the store (a potential ADA violation) without the accompanying feature on the site.
Second, the judge didn’t disagree outright with several of Target’s defenses regarding reasonable accommodations (an acceptable defense within ADA law), only that “the court declines to decide, at the class certification stage, which of the declarants’ purported injuries constitute violations of the ADA. Those questions reach the ultimate merits of this action.” In other words, the judge didn’t rule that Target.com and/or Target violated the ADA or whether their activities make suitable accommodations for the blind. Instead, she ruled that the class action suit to determine whether Target violated the ADA may proceed as Target didn’t successfully prove why the court shouldn’t allow the suit to proceed.
I’m not a lawyer, but have considerable practical experience in these types of actions. Ensuring accessibility is not a trivial matter for some types of sites, but it can be accomplished reasonably in many cases. Check out The Web Accessibility Initiative of the W3C for details. The content guidelines provide direction as to how to make your site accessible, and as Nick Caldwell points out above, “actually makes your site more usable for EVERYONE! Not to mention the benefits from the “natural” search-engine optimisation of a well-marked-up website.”
Cheers.
Lowest common denominator strikes again! Let’s build things for everyone all at once, let’s dance around a tree and sing songs about unity and solidarity! Oh, wait, we can’t. Because there are people that can’t dance or have no legs and that would offend them Fuck the blind. I make websites for people that can see. I write music for people that can hear — what’s next for California, mandating that I need to write songs that deaf people can hear clearly? Private companies should make any site they want — a site for grilling meat isn’t “accessible” to vegetarians but who the hell cares. This is CA government intervention at its best. If there are any blind people reading this — is this big enough for you –FUCK YOU. Take a swing at me, no doubt you’ll miss. Thanks. I needed that.
I’d say the internet is ubiquitous enough to warrant some governmental regulation on accessibility for the disabled, but I don’t think the technology is standardized enough to make meaningful laws yet. I agree with some previous posters, the burden shouldn’t necessarily be all on site owners like target, when there are some things that could make the process simpler at the browser level….
For anyone interested in learning more about the case’s background/Judge Patel’s recent ruling, check out http://onlineli...ary-and-update/
-Michael
Max (#31) is right. Same sort of thought process is going on in our (USA) educational system – dummy it ALL down to the lowest common denominator because we don’t want the lazy stupid people to feel bad because there are smart hard working people around them.
The lazy stupid bleeding heart people are the ones supporting government controls like this.
Free market is the only way to do this. Making sites accessible to the disabled is great! The onus is on the site owner. Leave it at that.
Last I heard this Target case only applied to websites that also had physical storefronts?
“the court clarified that the law requires that any place of public accommodation is required to ensure that it does not discriminate when it uses the internet as a means to enhance the services it offers at a physical location.”
I would gladly comply, but ONLY AFTER all of the newspapers started doing LARGE PRINT versions first.
What the hell, do they think that just because it’s on a computer that somehow it magically makes it easier to change layouts, sizes, etc?
Why don’t we change the highways and cars while were at it? How do the public libraries deal with this issue?
So, how do I test my site to see if it is accessible to the disabled?
Is the Government going to hand out free screen-reading software and speech synthesis hardware?
How is this discrimination? funny – now we’ll need to code multilingual versions of our site too, after all, we wouldn’t want to exclude anyone who cannot read English.
You have some soliders coming home without arms, legs, eye sight, hearing, etc…
I’m suprise to see 67% corporate companies didn’t pay larger IRS taxes to support disability.
You know what made Microsot stock jump higher back 1980s? I remember 1986 Microsoft deliever Windows 3.0. There’s accessible tool on control panel. All microsoft team got rich.
You know what made IBM stock jump higher?
http://www-03.i...1291394103.html
You know what made Google stock jump higher? It’s because of this…
http://labs.goo...com/accessible/
@31… You better watch your comments. Corporate companies do get nasty. They use IP address and store in database. Let say you want to to get a job and you send resume. Most likely you will never get hired or you will get layoff in 5-7 years. Most corporate companies want to reduce lawsuits against people with disabilty.
In C corporation, you pay double taxation.
This is something that has been coming for a long time. A very long time. How long can we continue to ignore visually impaired people’s use of the net. However, this could cost the tech world substantially. Its a difficult situation.
I would personally ensure that sites;
1. Have alt tags for images
2. Ensure they can be read by text based browsers.
But beyond that, I think any mandatory changes will be detrimental
Perhaps if accessibility had been taken into consideration before the rush to extremes of Ajax and Flash-based applications, those who care nothing for the accessibility of their sites to blind and visually-impaired people wouldn’t be whining at the prospect of having to make reasonable accommodations now. Just because you can do a thing technologically does not make it the right thing to do. I don’t have a great deal of sympathy for those who got caught with inaccessible tools and now must backtrack to make them useful. Accessibility guidelines for Web sites have existed for many years, and it is the gratuitous use of scripted applications that has thwarted them.
I also find the frequent use of “they” in regard to disabled people in this thread disturbing. Are there no disabled people where you live and work? Do you really see people with bad (or no) eyesight as some sort of inconvenient and slightly dodgy nuisances, like the homeless? Do you really think disabled people surf the Web just to find companies they can sue? Could it simply be that blind people want to shop at Target.com? And can you seriously suggest that providing a wheelchair-accessible bathroom has ANYTHING to do with making Web sites accessible to blind users? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
It comes down to a simple bottom line: I make my living on the Internet. I’m also visually impaired. If Internet tools I need are not accessible, I can’t work, shop, or visit your site and partake in what you have to sell. Would you prefer to support me with your tax dollars, including my living expenses and health care costs, or would you rather make your tools accessible so that I can do my job, earn a living and contribute my tax dollars to society, and my disposable income to you or your advertisers? Come on. Which is it?
This “news” is over a year old, the only thing new about it is the “class action” status.
And this only applies to “bricks-and-mortar stores”
All that alt-text is good for your SEO anyway, stop crying.
Speaking of discrimination, the very nature of their proposal discriminates against the hearing impaired –
So, let’s start with YouTube, since Google has the most money to spend on this.
As soon as each and every video on their site includes Closed Captioning, then let’s take on the rest of the sites. Until then, it’s just a few congressmen trying to make a case out of something which they really don’t understand.
The needs of one? Lowest common denominator?
Not only are those comments insulting but they’re also extremely ignorant. Take 2 minutes and research some statistics regarding disability…I think you’ll be shocked by how many millions of people with disabilities (just in California) that this could improve access for (http://www.cens...bs/c2kbr-17.pdf).
According to the 2000 census, one in five U.S. citizens has a long-lasting condition or disability. 3.6% of the entire population, according to the census, has a sensory disability (sight or hearing).
Obviously a big part of this discussion should be about who the law applies to regarding website access and how it is applied, though most of the comments so far reveal a larger issue of ignorance or denial.
There are various motivations to bringing a site up to speed accessibility wise. If you sell anything online, it’s absolutely stupid not to have a website that is accessible to people with disabilities — they make up a very sizable % of the general population AND the online audience. Plus how much more convenient is it for anyone to be able to purchase groceries from Peapod or goods from Target, etc.
As of about 12-16 months ago, Target didn’t even provide “alt tags” for the products on its site. That is one of the most basic things anyone with a website can do to improve accessibility. Many of the other ways to improve accessibility involve best coding practices (ie…writing valid code and using XHTML/CSS instead of tables), along with a few other simple concepts.
It’s not rocket science. Do it to improve your bottom line, to improve community relations, or just to know that your site is accessible to more people. That’s never a bad thing.
-Andrew
Shelly,
Not at all – it is just the added expense of modifying current sites which I take issue with – it’s no business of the Governments.
Perhaps the Gov’t is seeing this as a legislative back door – if they can begin mandating who/what the Internet is supposed to be, or what accessibility issues are to be in place, then what comes next?
I’m all for 100% accessibility, but I am a one-man IT company – who’s going to pay for it?
Am I now being discriminated against because I don’t have the necessary time or capital required to become compliant with such proposals?
Andrew – the URL you provided with your comment is WCAG1 priority 1 compliant, but fails 508 and WCAG1 priority 2 testing.
Dr Frd,
I think tech. is evolving too slowly and some lateral thinking and cross fertilization of ideas would help.
Should Radiohead make sign language videos for the deaf?
This is the equivalent of dictating that every book published must also be published in brail. Stupid.
Shelly:
we use Ajax and/or Flash to make sites more usable to common people. It’s an advantage for them because it makes sites faster, easier and opens up a lot of new possibilites that would be extremaly clumsy or impossibile to implement using plain old “static” HTML.
So, forcing everybody to a lower common standard would make a site accessible to the blind, but worsen the experience of all the others! Which is totally crazy!
Otherwise you’ll need to provide two designs: one for the blind, the other for not visually impaired people. That means twice the time, twice the mantainance, twice the problems and twice the cost!!!