Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:39:10 Z

Have you heard the news? Target recently settled the lawsuit that was filed against it in 2006 for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind. I just blogged about it on the Expression Web team blog, with lots of links to articles and blog posts about this:

http://blogs.msdn.com/xweb/archive/2008/09/01/website-accessibility-lawsuit-settled-by-target.aspx

What do you think?

Anna

http://blogs.msdn.com/anna

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:51:35 Z

I think that Target may have gotten off lightly and obviously they thought so since they settled for $6 million, plus agreed to fix the issues by January and submit to audits.

"Furthermore, the settlement requires Target to implement internal guidelines to make its site more accessible to the blind by Feb. 28, 2009, with assistance from the NFB. The retailer and the NFB have agreed to a three-year relationship during which the advocacy group will keep testing the site to make sure it is accessible to the blind who use technologies such as screen-reading software. NFB said it will certify the site through its own certification program once the improvements are completed."

Details on the NFB program appear here: http://www.nfb.org/nfb/certification_intro.asp?SnID=551359189

Also see: http://www.dralegal.org/cases/private_business/nfb_v_target.php

I'd also like to see the critiria used in the audits since there are more disabilities than just visual impairment such as: epeliptics that can have siezures triggered by animation at the wrong frame rate, mobility impaired, hearing impaired (not so much an issue on the Target site but can be on others such as uncaptioned videos, and yes, not all of mine are captions but eventually they will be, time and funds are a bit short right now and I'm not a corporation nor am I selling thoe videos.)

--
Cheryl D Wise
MS MVP Expression
http://by-expression.com

Only 2 days left to register for the August 30,2008 class session http://starttoweb.com:
Introduction to Expression Web class
Migrating from FrontPage to Expression Web class

Free Beginner tutorial: Creating a basic website

Finally, re the xweb blog an accessibility I find the black background with bright white and yellow text hard to read, it tends to strobe on me, especially with small text.

MS MVP Expression http://by-expression.com

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:35:01 Z

If they sued Target, I wonder what will happen with Walmart... hm...

Take a chance. Prepare to be surprised.

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:42:58 Z

I definitely think there should be an in-depth article in the help section about coding for the hard of sight/blind, due to this settlement. And also maybe a "Hard of Sight" report in Web that checks certain obvious things.

Take a chance. Prepare to be surprised.

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:27:49 Z

Oliver Black said:

Take a chance. Prepare to be surprised.

As to the first part, this is not a development environment issue. That is to say, it is an issue which obtains whether one uses Notepad, Dreamweaver, Expression Web, or any other tool, and it involves that term you have heard so many of us use around here--standards compliance, along with a further set of considerations which apply specifically to accessibility.

While it is possible to be completely standards-compliant without being completely accessible, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which it is possible to meet accessibility requirements without being largely standards-compliant.

The Help file is there to aid in using Expression Web, not to teach the principles of either standards compliance or accessibility. The designers of EW have gone to lengths to provide us the tools, and in many cases, the defaults, to achieve those lofty goals.

But, neither the program nor its Help system is designed nor intended to instruct users in the requirements or practices involved in producing an accessible site. I would direct you to Google, where a simple search on the subject of "accessibility" will yield page after page of guidance on what constitutes an accessible site, what factors make a site inaccessible, and what standards bodies and, in some cases, government entities deal with the official establishment of standards and of possible proscriptions against inaccessible sites.

As to your second request, it has been there all along, had you but taken the time to look (or to simply search the aforementioned Help file on the term "accessibility"). If you will kindly check under Tools|Accessibility Reports, you will find there the ability to check your site against the major accessibility standards, including, of course, those regarding the... umm, "hard of sight" (a term that I am compelled to admit to never having encountered before, being more accustomed to seeing "visually impaired" or "visually compromised," or simply "blind").

cheers,
scott

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:46:14 Z

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, accessibility isn't just about the blind or visually impaired. There are many categories of disability when it comes to websites. People who use assistive devices due to physical impairment ranging from arthritis that prevents the person from using a mouse to a quadrapaligic that uses a "sip and puff" device to control a pointer. to dyslexia (yes, cognative impairment is a recognized disability) to the deaf or hard of hearing.

Accessibility, at least at a basic level is not exactly rocket science. Most of it is basic good web coding practices. A website coded to recognized and published standards starting with a doctype the code will validate against, to WAI/WCAG (Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI/)/Web Content Accessiblity Guideline (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/) is a good place to start. In the US section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (http://section508.org ), section 504 (educational institutions) and ADA in the US. The DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) in the UK and if you are in a different country check since almost every country has its equivilent. The most often sited case on accessibility awards is the one arising from the Olympics in Australia where the Olympic website was found to be in violation of their accessibilty statues.

You cannot rely on automated accessibility checkers either since too many of the criteria is subjectivcve starting with "until user agents ..." However,Cynthia Says at http://www.contentquality.com/ is not a bad place to start an accessiblity check just don't think it can tell you for certain that your site is or is not accessible.

Other places to check out for more information on accessiblity:

Guild of Accessible Web Designers http://GAWDS.ORG
Webaim http://webaim.org/

Oh and while it is a little bit dated since it doesn't cover RIA/multimedia we have a free self paced course over at http://starttoweb.com on accessibility that anyone can take just by registering.

--
Cheryl D Wise
MS MVP Expression
http://by-expression.com

Only 1 day left to register for the August 30,2008 class session http://starttoweb.com:
Introduction to Expression Web class
Migrating from FrontPage to Expression Web class

Free Beginner tutorial: Creating a basic website

MS MVP Expression http://by-expression.com

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:33:31 Z

At the risk of being politically incorrect (which I often am), another victory for lawyers, and another nail in the coffin of Free Speech. We live in the single most litigious country in the world, which is why, for example, coffee cups have warnings that the contents may be hot, and dry cleaning bags have warnings that they should not be placed over one's head.

I am a big proponent of personal responsibility. Regardless of what laws are passed for whatever reasons, in the end, your life is what you make it. Using the power of the gun (all law emanates from the threat of force) to coerce others into bending to one's will is not a recipe for happiness. It does, however, make life more complicated and difficult for everyone.

IMHO

Kevin Spencer, Chicken Salad Alchemist

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:56:22 Z

Must agree with Kevin. Why didn't they (the NFB) just call for a boycott of all Target stores until they got their site in order. Would have had a far greater effect, no?

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:56:31 Z

Must agree with Kevin. Why didn't they (the NFB) just call for a boycott of all Target stores until they got their site in order. Would have had a far greater effect, no?

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:33:22 Z

In your presonal life I certainly agree. The Target litigation was about a company engaged in interstate commerce which makes them subject to anti-discrimination laws.

MS MVP Expression http://by-expression.com

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:40:39 Z

From a marketing standpoint, there is a slightly different perspective on this.

6 million is not a bad price for advertising involved.

When you consider all the publicity, and the people who visited target website to see what the fuss was about, it was a win - win situation for the people involved. Target got a lot of advertising for their money, and the lawyers made a nice paycheck.

Customers would have had to pay the cost of advertising built into the cost of the product anyway, and so this is just another form of advertising.

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/target.com

Some times it's hard to tell a scheme from a plan

Lawsuit against Target for having a website that is inaccessible to the blind was settled

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:06:00 Z

I fed my sites into a section 508 oriented tool and I passed as expected. My sites are designed to be as accessible as reasonable, even though in my country there is no pressure to. I choose from volition. What's another button, got 7 others. I have so many ticks on my sites, they are developing Tourette's disorder.

My screen is very high-res, but Google Analytics tells me everything from an iPhone up is in use. Love to see this site on an iPhone, too much clutter.

It dismays me to see things have to degenerate into litigation. My site sounds OK with screen reader software. So the way I see it, a blind person would manage more or less. Why can't the various support groups put together a list of vendors with screen reader friendly sites. Tedious but doable.

Developer http://contract-developer.dyndns.biz & http://web-developer.dyndns.biz