ADA Doesn't Apply to Web

djmoore writes "A federal judge has ruled that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) does not apply to the Web. U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz dismissed with prejudice a suit demanding that Southwest Airlines make its website more accessible to the blind, saying that the suit would create new rights for the disabled without setting appropriate standards. Judge Seitz also rejected plaintiffs' claim that the Web is a 'place of exhibition, display, and a sales establishment,' one of the twelve categories covered by the ADA, on the grounds that the law only covers physical places." Our original article has more details.

Similar case, different result

[marick]

"A federal judge ruled that the Atlanta mass transit agency violated the ADA by constructing a website that was inaccessible for people with visual disabilities."

Read it here [sedbtac.org]

I guess what makes these cases different is that one is a private company, the other a public service organization.

Re:Quite Right

[MrWa]

This isn't modded as funny?

Why should new laws need to be setup when there exists one already designed to permit disabled persons the same rights as everyone else?

If anything, we need to evaluate laws on a one-by-one basis and determine if it makes sense for them to apply in cyberspace. In this situation - effectively eliminating an entire segment of society from participating in web commerce - it makes sense to me that we should allow handicapped access. What needs to be done, though, is draft an extension to the ADA that specifies what types of sites require access - a shotgun approach would only cause more problems.

Good! Some of the web is pure entertainment

[Just Some Guy]

While most /. visitors probably use the web as an information medium, we may be in the minority. For example, my daughter likes to play the online games at Playhouse Disney [go.com]. Tell me, how would you make a screenreader-friendly, low-bandwidth, or Lynx-viewable version of a website that's designed strictly for interactive entertainment without any real information content?

Yes, it's sad that a visually-impaired person can't get the full enjoyment from that site. However, I don't think they should be able to sue to force ADA compliance, any more than they should be able to sue Sony for not making Gran Turismo accessible.

Remember, just because you primarily use the web as an information resource does not mean that everyone else does.

Re:Quite Right

[quitcherbitchen]

He didn't. It's just an example of how old laws were defined in new terms (however inappropriately).

Accessibility on the web deserves a similarly fresh look. Not just a reinterpretation of the existing ADA.

Law vs. Good Business Practices

[TrollBridge]

Bravo!! Score +1 to the Judge for common sense!!

If a business wants to exclude a portion of its customer base for the sake of making a site that is easier to use for the broad majority of its other customers, who is Uncle Sam to tell them to do otherwise?

Sure, it may not be a sound business decision to ensure that certain market segments cannot purchase your product, but that's their decision, not yours or mine or the government's.

Back in Architecture School...

[aaarrrgggh]

...we had to go around campus for a day in wheelchairs, to understand the barriers that architects create for people who cannot walk. The focus is on understanding what things can be done to "maintain architectural integrity," and also provide universal access. A similar exercise was done to experience the enviroment as a blind person.

The problem with ADA is that it is very strict, as many government guidelines seem to be, and it is enforced to the letter, not always looking towards the merits of improved accessibility itself.

I agree with the judge's ruling, but... I really wish web designers at least provided a compatibility level alternative, considering different ways that people access information.

Re:im blind

[_ph1ux_]

that wasnt the point.

The point is that I think it is stupid for *demands* to be made to make other people change their behavior to suit my needs.

The issue is not that there be technology *available* that would allow me to, say, hear slashdot via a text to speach device. The issue is the consideration of laws that would *require* slashdot or any other site to format their page/content in such a manner so as to make it usable with any accessibility device that enables me to comprehendably receive the content.

You can look at the statement as jsut a poor quick joke - or you can read it and think about what it means.

As I stated in my other post - I think that the requiring of any technology to be designed around the few who are different than the population en mass is completely idiotic.

Dont get me wrong - I have nothing against the impaired as it were - but the view on this should be reversed. There should be no requirement on the *content creators* to adhere to some sort of informational accessability law.

It would be one thing for a site to specifically format their content so as to not be accessible to a device for the impaired - but it shouldnt have to comply to some ADA ruling, unless the ADA specs were actually a part of the RFC that specs out a mechanism for forming/making/posting content to any display device (such as HTML browsers or other such programs)

I don't want to be an asshole here, but

[SatanicPuppy]

Who says that anyone has the 'right' to visit any one site on the internet? Browser incompatibilities are everywhere. If I've got a crappy browser, and a slow connection I can't see half of anything. If the site doesn't have a non-flash, slow modem connection option, can I sue?

And as for the 'ease' of compiling a completely different, all-text, reader-friendly site...I for one don't want to have to rewrite all the code on the 70 odd sites I administer, for the 1% of the population which is either blind, or unnaturally connected to their "Turbo Gopher" program.

I'm all for readability, and I'm all for the government being required to publish handicapped friendly sites, but it should be choice for private enterprise. If they don't want the extra cost for the extra business, so what? That should be their choice, especially in regards to a format like HTML which is SO heavily visual.

Christ, it's like mandating Radio stations play a streaming "text band" along with their signal, so that DEAF people can enjoy it too.

Re:insane ruling

[uberbrownout]

By designing their page how they see fit, they lose not only the blind, but a percentage of people with slow modems and some people that just don't like all the crap. Southwest is currently offering flights from southern California (where I live) to Las Vegas for 19.00 each way, plus taxes and all that. Maybe they have are other routes that make money, but that one doesn't. That's less than it would cost me in gas to drive there. I don't think it's much of an issue of whether they WANT to spend money on all the extras to bring in a few disabled people - it's whether they can. Airlines aren't exactly raking it in lately; even the big ones are hurting, and Southwest is not one of the big ones. Unfortunately, there are a lot of places that aren't friendly to blind people. I, on the other hand, plan to fly to Vegas sometime this year, and I happen to like the fact that I can do it for maybe 60 bucks after taxes. Southwest most likely reached those numbers by scraping bottom in every aspect of their business, and if that means they got a decent-looking website out of it, but it isn't accessible to blind people, well I'm sorry. Hire a reader.

Why let this go to court?

[zbuffered]

I wonder what Southwest's motivation was for taking this to court. Alt tags alone would be very simple to implement, so is it possible that they saw a need to take a stand and did so, Oliver North style?

If you really feel you are in the right, is it your duty to do as Southwest did, and make them follow up on their threat to "take you to court" if you don't do what they want? Certainly, their lawyers charged SW a pretty penny, maybe more than their web people would have, so do you think they weighed the cost and just said, "aw, screw it, let's give the blind what-for!"

I guess the real question would be, what would one cost them versus the other, and did they act in the best interests of their stockholders, or did they do what they thought was right?

Final thought: If, after this is all over, they made their website blind-accessible, what a great statement would that be?

Re:I'm sorry to say I agree with the court ruling

[Monkeyman334]

Maybe this has already been answered, but I haven't seen it. What if you use Flash on your site, and the plugin doesn't implement the ADA standards. Who is responsible? What if you do a poor job of typing out the alt tags and it makes it's possible, but difficult to run through talking software? There's too much grey area and difficulty when dealing with the standards.

Re:I'm sorry to say I agree with the court ruling

[Mr. McGibby]

HTML is not the web. Much of the web is made up of flash animations, which I think are PERFECTLY FINE and can do a lot more than simple HTML.

The judge is right...

[DEBEDb]

Because any web site is a public place, and
so this needs to be thought out.
You are not required to have your house ADA-compliant, but even your personal web site
is just as publicly accessible as a big company's,
and so should every Joe Frontpage be forced
to make it compliant after such a precedent?

Do you need a website to be "Accessable"?

[t0qer]

Seriously....

Calling: 1-800-IFLYSWA

Recorded voice "Lower fares may be availiable on website"

Human being "Hello this is Ruby, Thank you for calling Southwest Airlines, how may I help you?"

Me,"Sorry, wrong number, thanks."

Up to the point where the recording said lower fares may be availiable on the website, I thought, what a stupid ass lawsuit, you mean to tell me these blind people don't have a phone?

But then listening to that, it made me draw 2 conclusions, either...

A. There really ARE lower fares on the SW website.
or
B. It's just a trick by marketing to whore your info from you over the web.

Either way, SW would be at fault in an accessability lawsuit unless they

A. Upgrade the workstations the phone people use so they can read websites to blind people.

B. Add "alt" tags.

Maybe the judge should consider that.

Re:1-800-IFLYSWA works for blind people

[_Sprocket_]

Now, if the guy had called, complained that he couldn't navigate the website because he's blind, asked for the reduced rate anyway, and been denied, then he might have a valid complaint.

...and he would know about this reduced "web rate"... how?

Umm, no.

[YottaMatt]

On the contrary. I think anyone described in the latter cased should be thrown out with prejudice, but the web is a different beast.

The web is about HTML and HTTP. HyperText Markup Language and HyperText Transfer Protocol, repectivly.

You'll note the emphasis on Text, which can be read to the blind, dropped into Braile, and babelfished into other languages.
Its not called Click on Rich Media Language, its not called Image Delivery Language.
The fundamentals of the web are about delivering text, and it came to offer extensions for images rich media, because hey, they're cool.
If you deliberatly ignore a fundamental principle of something, and opt to retrict access to someone with a disabily, you should be held accountable for it.

Re:Original website?

[bmf033069]

Even more strange is that some items have alt tags and some don't. Obviously they thought enough to do it in some places, but didn't take the time to do it completely.

It probably cost more to pay the lawyers than the time it would have taken to bring the page up to accessibility standards.

Meanwhile, a SW competitor could advertise itself as being accessible-friendly and do quite well for itself (even if it is for the PR).

Re:Cool!

[Frank of Earth]

However, if you want to be ranked in search engines, then you definately want to use alt tags that describe the content of your site.

Re:Cool!

[Mokele]

If you're following the w3 web standards, especially the latest like XHTML then you'll have to use the alt tag since its required for valid HTML.

Re:I'm sorry to say I agree with the court ruling

[Mr. McGibby]

They're not searchable.

Why not? Google searches PDFs, Word docs, etc. The text for Flash is there, you just have to parse it out. It isn't any harder to search a Flash animation than it is a PDF (which you suggested in your other post as a good way to present graphically designed web sites).

I can't view them on my system.

Again, why not? Flash players exist for almost every platform. Maybe you should get a different system. I can't view HTML on my pocket calculator. That doesn't mean that HTML isn't accessible.

They assume a given browsing paradigm.

So does HTML. They assume that you're using an HTML browser. What if I want to use a gopher browser to view their web pages?

Much of the value in the web is in information that can be categorized and operated on meaningfully by software, which flash animations cannot.

I really don't much care about whether or not people or software can categorize and operate on my web page. When folks create a web page (like any other information), it is for a certain audience and they want it presented in the way they want it presented to that audience.

It really bugs me that there are folks who seem to want to "live in the old days" when "HTML was HTML and didn't have all these fancy-ass plugins". It's called progress folks. I don't really care what "the web was meant to be used for". People are using the web in ways that were never concieved when HTML was created. It wasn't created with the disabled in mind. ALT tags were created for folks who didn't have a graphical terminal.

hyper TEXT markup language was never meant to include graphics. And what is wrong with GRAPHICS? Humans are visual creatures. A picture says a thousand words. Any decent web designer (and even the W3C zealots) will admit that HTML sucks. It's four thousand hacks layered on top of other hacks. And while you may think that graphics don't add to the web, a million other humans disagree.

What my question is, is why isn't everyone who is complaining about Flash working to create an accessible alternative? Why don't they create an alternative to HTML that makes it easy to create a well-designed (visually) site that is accesible to all users?

Let's try to improve the system, instead of trying to force people to stick to the old, inflexible way of doing it. Ban Flash, ban HTML, do something better.

Re:Good, but...

[elmegil]

I have to say I'm a fence sitter on this myself. I think that ruling that the web is "not a place..." is a huge setback for equivalence of laws in cyberspace. That's something that I think is important. As long as we treat the web as "a special case", we will be supporting the same mindset that thinks applying an ancient and accepted business model to the web is novel and patentable.

On the other hand, I do think that making a blanket judgement that all websites must be ADA compliant, or even all commercial websites, given the mom-n-pop nature of a lot of commercial websites, would be disastrous for the economy of the web. It's already hard enough to make money online unless you're a spammer or selling porn.

hm....that sounds like an interesting thing. ADA compliant porn sites....

Re:Good, but...

[jgordon7]

Well one reason I have discovered when trying to make a website 508 compliant (there is a law require federal agencies to be accessible to the blind). Is that a blind person interacts with a site differently than a seeing person. Yes the seeing person can interact the same way a blind person can, however there are certain features that the seeing person can take advantage of for navigation or other uses as shortcuts to make it easier for them. This does not give the seeing person more data or contact but simply a different interface. There is more to making a site accesible than just adding ALT tags. Tables and input fields can confuse screen readers. Sometime you have to put extra text within tables that seeing person does not need, however to make the screen reader make sense you need this extra text.

Re:That's too bad

[OAScout394]

The result of printing a PDF on various OS's should not be inconsistent unless you use a non-standard PDF reader. Each reader should print them all the same. Adobe releases an free "official" Acorbat Reader on virtually every major operating system. (Everything from Palm OS to OS/2 Warp)

Also, fonts can be embedded within a PDF file and PGP is not in wide distribution or common use by anyone but a few buisnesses and secure power users. If you were to encrypt or sign a document with PGP, the majority of users would not be able to tell the differance. Not to mention, a oublic key would have to be distributed along with every secure document you download to ensure that the signature is valid.

Non-compiled web languages are the easiest means of transporting ideas yes, but when any printing standard is required. PDF is a far more controlled solution.

Thanks for your time,
Cameron

Re:I'm sorry to say I agree with the court ruling

[marauder404]

I repeat. The only problem arises from those who incorrectly try to use HTML as a graphic design medium.

This is where you're wrong. Content is NOT king. In fact, it's useless without being presented in a useful format. Headers, footers, and navigation are vital cues to the web being a useful medium. It's not about data ... that's what XML is for. PEOPLE are reading webpages and we have to make them friendly for PEOPLE to use. You can't tell me that an article on CNN is much easier to read because of the familiar header/side menu/footer format than if you had pasted the whole document in Notepad and tried to read it there. The images, highlights, backgrounds, fonts, font sizes, and typefaces are very important to being able to recognize the desired text very easily. Ever come across a site that looked wrong because they put the wrong content in the wrong place? That's poor design.

Re:Cool!

[conundrum11]

As a professional web designer, I have encountered the ADA standards head on when I had a contract with the local State School (U of A). In the publicly funded context, the ADA is necessary and makes perfect sense to be applied to the web. Absolutely.

To say that bringing a site up to ADA standards costs nothing is just wrong. Is maintaining two versions of the site a possibility? Are there possible legal ramifications for code errors? I would agree that if the site is designed with Accessibility in mind then the cost is minimalized. Otherwise, someone has to code the changes, and that person needs to be an expert in JAWS, WC3 Recommendations, and Bobby (bless his soul). Alt tags are a nice start, but navigation is much much more difficult to change after the fact.

As a parting thought, answer me this: If my target audience does not include the disabled, should I still be required to adhere to ADA accessibility standards?

conundrum11
moc.snoitcudorpnayam@rms
"You don't want to get into that kind of trouble with me."

Chalk up another good law being ruined by the -

[cmdrwhitewolf]

Bush Administration. {If you don't realise the courts are taking their marching orders from the good ole boys network on top, then your simply not paying attention! This administration has been systematically rolling back dozens of reforms, laws, and the like on the books in the name of big business & profits... But that's not what this thread is about.} Being hearing impaired (and fully employable!) myself, I've seen first hand time and again how many business would really prefer to treat the disabled & the ADA. I constantly hear lazy business executives whine 'why should I be forced to do this?' quickly follow it up with the dogeared excuse, 'If we do it'll cost us our profit margin!' What irritates me the most, (and I imagine most other disabled people) is that after spending lots of my hard earned money just to *try* and be able to function like a normal human being most of the time, these same businessmen are completely unwilling to meet me part of the way, by spending a little of their money to make my use of their facilities less of a hassle for me... The disabled aren't looking for free handouts - what we're for is simply being *able* to do what everyone else takes for granted without having to resort to /extraordinary measures/ to do so. And the ADA *WAS* intended to prod the really stubborn amongst our population into simply providing the disabled a part way meeting point so we could do just that. And, we all know that without it, a larger portion of the general populance would simply prefer to throw up a "it's somebody else's problem" mental shield of ignorance to hide behind! Personally, I think everyone who voices their negative opinions about the ADA should try spending one day of their weekend without their hearing, sight or ability to walk to get a small idea of the challenges it presents them. Because they can't imagine it, they have to experience it. Besides - How many of you noticed that people who were fully-abled and once believed that ADA was a such huge financial burden usually change their tunes when they or their children become disabled, and experience what it's like firsthand? The sad thing is this is mostly because of a ignorant self awareness of our current cultural training. Which unfortunately, is directly proportional to how well medical technology eventually adverts some of disabilities we're born with, and creating a smaller and smaller minority of people who 'slip through the cracks of our cultural machinerys normal functioning'. {And for those of you who still don't know what I'm refering too, here's a sample qoute illustrating the reality of many disabled people in our society - "Born a dwarf? Tough cookies - you'll just have wait until you get home to go to bathroom, Because all of our urinal's & toilets are set at the average persons height." Unfortunately, after seeing this response enough times, even some of normally polite disabled people become quite tempted to simply unzip their fly and start p****** on these business peoples shoes for responding & acting like that in the first place.} Making websites available to the blind isn't a big in the first place, putting glorified eyecandy on the site SHOULD NOT BE the end all of a Website. For most company website, that goal should be conveying information about their products and services, and how people can purchase them. The web (and the attendant webservers) can do just like the BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) that came before them/it did, and have the ability for displaying multiple formats for the pages based on what kind of connection that is being made, (Ascii with color codes or just plain text in the 'old days'). I did it while I ran my own BBS years ago, and I really don't see why an Apache Webserver Admin can't do the same thing now days - because their essentially already doing something pretty similar to it when they use the language specific pages. Why can't an Apache web administrator (or user) simply toggle a switch that defines whether HTML or rich text is sent to a browser? I've seen others in the forum state many times that properly implemented HTML would make this very simple. Therefore, I can only conclude that several people are just cutting corners at the expense of the blind. Personally, I think such is inherently wrong. But then, in this post-enron world, Morality & Ethics are probably getting dispensed with in the pursuit of the all mighty dollar... :/ - WW