Accessibility and Usability Forum

Big job and big business (money) is to regulate the web. We’ll pay for it, to its last cent. Therefore, start thinking about your (early) retirement and when will be the best moment to sell your business. ;)

This case probably means that every big company doing business online should be freaked out and ensure they’re compliant. Sounds like an increased budget for IT. Also, sounds like SOX (minimized).

And yes, to many, it does not sound right that they have to spend so and so money and time in order to accommodate a small percentage of the total number of people “around”.
At the same time, if I ever get questioned by impaired person why he/she could not access my store (street or online), my focus would be on making that happen (access) as I would feel very bad. People should never be considered as numbers.
And if we are about numbers, the news (and fact) how Mr. Owner was thoughtful about all this and made the right change (accommodating impaired ) could actually influence the numbers because of good marketing effect.

In case anyone is interested, since I had to dig to find it, Accessibility Tips from w3:
[w3.org...]

I thought Target's website is powered by Amazon, so it's Amazon liable?

It doesn't downgrade perfectly (it's a cluttered site) so it would be a bit annoying for visually impared users, but no more so than the rest of the pupulation. In my quick look I didn't spot anything that actually made it inaccessible.

At any rate, the fellow who started the whole thing can't recover damages greater than $7,000.

It's not a ruling, it's a settlement.

A "bricks-and-mortar" store is a visual medium too, haven't you noticed all the signs with the prices on them? That doesn't mean that the company doesn't need to respect clear legislation regarding accessibility in their store. Why should the same not be true for a website by the same company? Why shouldn't a company be made responsible for failing to make a minimum of effort to make their website accessible to blind users?

That's absolutely the rationale, that, and the legislation you mentioned. Little doubt that this was the right course.

The naysayers are questioning the rationale behind having the government legislate how businesses treat their customers.

Either it's lawful to treat the visually impaired, who number in the millions, as if they don't exist OR a society can agree to make it the law that reasonable accommodations be taken to address their needs. Given the aging post-war baby boom population I don't see the issue of visual impairment becoming a "smaller issue".

How strange that anyone should rant or rail against an accommodation as simple as adding alt-image tags to an images as a reasonable accommodation to the blind or visually impaired.

Here's an idea: Let's unburden those who don't wish to go the extra (SEO friendly) step of adding alt-image text to photos, etc.

Let's code browsers such that browsers won't render images that are not associated with a verbal description of the image!

Problem solved!

I'd like to offer this perspective:

My eyesight has always been pretty good but a couple of months ago I noticed that the sight in my right eye had gotten kind of blurry.
Blurry and distorted, too. I was seeing straight lines as wavy lines in the right hand portion of my right eye.
At the optometrist's I could not even see the "top line" of the eye chart and magnification wasn't correcting anything.

I was referred to a retinal specialist, and it turned out I've got a retinal inflamation accompanied by some bleeding in the retinal wall of my eye.
After extensive diganostic tests showed me healthy (no brain tumors, at least!) - the doctor has absolutely no idea what brought it on.
Here's the rub, though:
Just a few years ago there was no treatment for this. It might have gone away on it's own but maybe not and I would be functionally blind in my right eye. Luckily there's the redundancy evolutionary biology has been kind to enough to provide me in my left eye, but it kind of got me thinking about what I would do if the left eye went also.
And it would get you thinking, too.
Further, the condition I've got is extremely similar to a condition called Macular Degeneration which is an extremely common age-related disease. For some reason, it hits caucasian (white) people almost exclusively.
Think you won't have a severe visual disability to deal with in your life? It's not a good bet - visual problems increase with age, period.
And I assume you're planning on sticking around.

But to honestly be able to use a website properly without your eyes would need way way more than AltTags.

Expecting fine. Requiring by law, that's what the naysayers have a problem with. Doesn't mean their wrong, just a difference in beliefs in where the community good crosses over the personal good.

Of course it's not very bright for a major retailer to have a website that's not crossbrowser compatible. But personally I don't think that my 'expectations' as to what I should see on somebody's website should become 'law'. If I don't like their website or it doesn't fit my needs, I 'expect' I'll take my money elsewhere.

If I was blind, I would take my business elsewhere, just as I would skip the business that didn't have handicapped parking if I was in a wheelchair.