Should Online Stores Be Subject To ADA?

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.

About Time!

Maybe finally we can put a stake through the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Flash-only sites.

It's got my vote.

If it ends up banning flash from being a part of web site's UI, it's got my vote.

flash doesn't work.

Flash always ignores my browser default text settings. It also makes noises when I have configured the browser to be silent. On top of that, there are bugs in it that mean that highlight,copy,paste doesn't work. Of course, these would not be a problem if t

Re:About Time!

It's a common misonception that flash ins't accessible, the latest versions are very much so. JK Rowlings new site is meant to be a good example of this.

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Flash is fundamentally inaccessible given that you MUST have the plug-in to get the content. If you have the plug-in, then Flash can be quite accessible. If you don't, then it's absolutely inaccessible. That's why JK Rowling's site has text-only alternativ

Re:About Time!

Text-only alternatives aren't accessible unless you have a computer. Come on, just because you need a free plugin doesn't make it inaccessible. JK Rowling's site uses Flash in such a way that the screen readers can actually read the flash content.

Probably just as well...

Plain old HTML sites are a lot faster than the newer Flash-y sites with the latest doodads. Examples of well-designed sites (get the job done with a good, fast interface while managing to look good) are Google, LiveJournal, and Craigslist. All of which I can use with Lynx should the desire strike me.

-b.

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Plain old HTML sites are a lot faster than the newer Flash-y sites with the latest doodads.

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

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Are we running it on comparable servers, first of all?

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

Marilyn Hall Patel...

...was also the second Judge for US v. Microsoft.

Market

Not to sound insensitive to those with disabilities, but why not simply let the market push the matter? If companies want to attract a certain type of customer then they do what's necessary to attract those customers including marketing their products to

Why, sure, the market will fix this one.

"Not to sound insensitive to those with disabilities, but why not simply let the market push the matter?"

Just like the market solved Jim Crow. No intervention by the government necessary at all.

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Because the disabled are too small a minority to perform a significant market push.

Re:Market

Congress decided the market wasn't working with respect to the handicapped. The costs were too high and the benefits accrued to too few individuals to make it worthwhile for most organizations to retrofit for handicapped accessibility. So, of course, nobody did.

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.

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I see your point on the retrofit vs building from anew. Still I don't think I could justify forcing every website that sells something to be ADA compliant (or some other standard). I run an ISP in rural America. I can think of literally hundreds of Ma

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Leaving the "market" to achieve a social goal relies on two assumptions:

1. There is a market in the first place (i.e. competition).
2. The economic valuation is similar to the social one.

In this case there certainly is a market, but it leads to results we d

No

The accessibilities regulation when it comes to web sites have the same issues a LOT of things have when it comes to the web: They imply that the web is nothing more than a variant of a PDF browser. It doesn't consider that HTML/CSS were very poorly designed, that we have to deal with IE6 (even though IE7 came out), that the web already requires 10 bazillion skills, and if you need experts in every categories to do anything, a lot of companies will have to retire from the field, that a lot of the content is beyond the developer's control, etc etc etc.

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...

Spoken like an old table based layout "web designer" who hasn't been able to adapt with the times

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.

Incentives

200,000 people out of 300 million is too small a population for national retailers to care about, economically. But besides the legal incentives there is an economic incentive to following the WAI guidelines. Better accessibility also means more useful i

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The problem here is that maybe, right now, target doesn't want to allocate their ressources to their web development. Maybe they have limited ressources, and don't have time to hire more in that department, or their IT staff doesn't have time to train a ne

Absolutely not

Webmasters should be able to cater to whomever they choose. Should Target be against making their website accessable I have a great solution for the blind, visit the retail outlet, or a competitor. Maybe webmasters should make their sites accessable to peo

Unequivocally, yes

Online stores are undoubtedly a public accomodation, and the accomodation necessary to allow the blind to use the site is very reasonable, assuming that the original web deisgners weren't completely retarded when the designed the site. Simply create an HTM

C'mon

Flash-only sites are crap, and a blight on the internet, yes. But how often have problems been really SOLVED by adding new laws?

Let market forces work it out. These companies will lose business because of the accessibility problems, and probably also bec

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"Flash-only sites are crap, and a blight on the internet, yes. But how often have problems been really SOLVED by adding new laws?"

Yeah, we all know how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made discrimination problems worse. And who needed that Emancipation Pro

Sounds Reasonable

This sounds reasonable especially since Target is such a big retailer. It doesn't require too much effort either since Target could just provide an alternate "face" for the text readers.

Fund the Mandates

It's unreasonable for all the people of the US, through our government, to install disabled-accessible architecture at physical stores. But it's perfectly reasonable for our government to offer free architectural diagrams and plans for stores to build thei

Interesting Ruling

Making an online store a public place isn't really that far of a leap. It will be interesting to see how retailers react to this. Perhaps we'll see seperate pages now for the regular surfer vs. the blind surfers.
It would seem to me that the disabled, b

Re:ADA is bad law

Luckily, my house has stairs, so they'll be stuck milling around outside in their wheelchairs when they come to get me.

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> ADA = tyranny of the handicapped.

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.

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I think I have a way to deal with clueless lusers that make it impossible to skip flash introductions that the Mikado would be proud of:

Put them in solitary confinement until they can fill out a 500 page webform explaining why they should be released. E

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ADA = tyranny of the handicapped.

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 accomo

Re:ADA is bad law

Yes, but this is browsing the web, not a physical activity. Using the web is now a normal and necessary part of life for so many people. It doesn't take much to accomodate blind people at design and implementation time. If the web site designers/developers had done it correctly from the beginning then it wouldn't be so costly. It seems to me that many UI designers (be it web, traditional software application, media such as DVD, etc) are either ignorant or lazy. And anybody with a Comp. Sci degree has no excuse and should take this as a given - either that or their university was shit and the degree certificate isn't worth the paper it's printed on. This is fundamental and very basic HCI.

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Nope. Deaf dude calls relay operator, relay operator calls store and "translates" between.

Unfortunately, use of a relay operator is becoming common for scammers, etc. to hide accents and out of area calls.

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Nope. Deaf dude calls relay operator, relay operator calls store and "translates" between.

Of course, this might be a solution to Target's problem right here -- have operators standing by to navigate their website for the benefit of blind people.

(Or

Re:ADA is bad law

So easy to say that (and so flippantly too) when you're not disabled.

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Should be require every mom-and-pop store and restaurant to buy a TDD (Teletype Device for the Deaf) so that deaf people can call them on the phone and place orders?

Well, in California, we have a statewide, free, public relay service so that TDD users can

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Should be require every mom-and-pop store and restaurant to buy a TDD?

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 organizatio

Just getting STARTED, my friend!

Should be require every mom-and-pop store and restaurant to buy a TDD (Teletype Device for the Deaf) so that deaf people can call them on the phone and place orders?

No! Every store should have to employ someone who signs in American Sign Language (and e

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You say that now, but I'm sure you'll sing a different tune if you go blind or deaf.

You'll sing a different tune if you go blind...

"You say that now, but I'm sure you'll sing a different tune if you go blind or deaf."

"Georgia, Georgia, The whole day through Just an old sweet song Keeps Georgia on my mind...."

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Define bad law for me.

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

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They're part of the community that can walk up steps. If they dont want to cater to 100% of the population that's their choice.

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In which case you vote with your wallet by not partonizing them.

Welcome to capitalism.

Re:ADA is bad law

There are many examples of this foolishness. Here in San Francisco the ADA-compliant public self-cleaning restrooms are so large inside that they are mainly used by hookers as a convenient place to deliver a blow job. All apartments recently constructed here in the city have ADA-compliant bathrooms large enough to U-turn a fire truck. Let me tell you that it really impinges on your 800-square-foot apartment when your bathroom is statutorily required to be at least 100 square feet. And even a remodel triggers the ADA: in my former office, we had obnoxious ADA-compliant bathrooms which were both huge and furnished with uncomfortably-tall ADA-compliant toilets.

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.

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I just don't understand why people would be content to let a group of their fellow citizens be disenfranchised from large segmens of society because of their disability. Our sense of fairness demands that if we can do something to bring accessibility to pe

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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 everybody else.

(Ap

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I've said it before, I'll say it again:
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 ext

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Stuff I've built generally meets all the relevant accessibility guidelines - except I wasn't deliberately aiming for them.

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

Is it?

If you've never experienced the flip side, you wouldn't know.

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 servic

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So your problem is with the law, not deaf people. If she was allowed to charge more, there would be no problem. Nice empathy there, dick. I guess if you ever go deaf you'll be more than happy to sit in your room all the time not doing anything.