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Demaestro - 3:40 pm on Sep 14, 2006 (gmt 0)
Agreed but the question remains...... Are the guidelines for developing Websites a matter of law? Should law makers being forcing html guidlines on us. w3 is not a law making body they are a standards orginization. Please give reasons why yes if you think the law should be involved in forcing standrads on people. I think it is very a very dangerous slope to be standing on. This is so true....... and yet with all these ways of gaining access to the pysical location how would ANY of these examples you gave help a blind person find CoCo puffs or even the cereal isle? What do brick and mortar stores have to tell a blind person what product they are standing infront of? The answer is NONE! nothing, nadda, nathen, zero, zip. All examples giving are for the disabled but not the blind, a blind man doesn't need a curb cutouts, elevators, ramps, automatic doors, accessible bathrooms, counter areas of certain heights. So tell me what do brick and mortor stores have so that blind people can ID products on the shelves with? Do you see brail on all the prices and products? Nope you don't, does Walmart get sued for not have brail reading price tags...No they don't so enough of the brick and mortor comparison it is not a valid argument as major brick and mortor stores have no service for the blind that equals what LAW MAKERS are discussing having legally required on your website. Again I am all for making your site accessable to everyone and the work involved in bring your site up to scratch can be minor unless you are dealing with a high volume of pages, but still a matter of law? No way! Discrimination? That is a stretch. [edited by: Demaestro at 3:44 pm (utc) on Sep. 14, 2006]
We're talking about basic html guidelines here and nothing else. If the guidelines for developing a website were followed, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Offline business are required to put in curb cutouts, elevators, ramps, automatic doors, accessible bathrooms, counter areas of certain heights, etc. Requiring an online business to provide basic levels of accessibility simply levels the playing field. There are no good or justifiable reasons to render most sites inaccessible.