Blind Cal student sues Target - Web site cannot be used by the sightless

[Kadie]

Blind Cal student sues Target
Suit charges retailer's Web site cannot be used by the sightless
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, February 8, 2006


(02-08) 1215 PST OAKLAND -- A blind UC Berkeley student has filed a class-action lawsuit against Target Corp., saying the retailer is committing civil-rights violations because its Web site is inaccessible to those who cannot see.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Alameda County Superior Court, said the upscale discounter's on-line business, target.com, denies blind Californians equal access to goods and services available to those who can see.

"Target thus excludes the blind from full and equal participation in the growing Internet economy that is increasingly a fundamental part of daily life," said the suit, which seeks to be certified as a class action and alleges violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and various state statutes.

snip...
Blind people access Web sites by using keyboards in conjunction with screen-reading software which vocalizes visual information on a computer screen.

But Target's site lacks "alt-text," an invisible code embedded beneath a graphic on the Web site that a screen reader could use to provide a description of the image to a blind person, the suit said.


more...
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/08/MNGO7H4VBP128.DTL

[applegrove]

1. That is just bad form.

[cheezus]

2. ah, good ole 508 and WAI compliance

When I worked as a developer at the university, we made darn sure that our sites went above and beyond the current legal requirements for three reasons

1 - it's just the right thing to do
2 - validating is a matter of pride
3 - you get a better understanding of code and layout when you keep accessibility in mind


that said, it wasn't cheap! a lot of man-hours went into it.

[MissMarple]

3. Was this an unfortunate oversight, or did they just not care?

:shrug:

[Kadie]

5. Target declined to modify their web-site

from the article

snip...
Basrawi said the plaintiffs began negotiating with Target after writing the retailer in May 2005. But talks broke down last month, and the company, whom the attorney described as "one of the biggest offenders," declined to modify its Web site.

[MissMarple]

10. Oops, a major oops. n/t

[philosophie_en_rose]

4. learn something new everyday.

I didn't know about alt-text. Sounds pretty simple, not to mention good for business.

[tn-guy]

7. I wonder if DU has this "alt-text" capability. Anyone know?

[wtmusic]

12. Yep

Select "View Source" in your browser. Alt-text in image tags looks like this:

alt="Democratic Underground"

[Tesha]

18. "Hover" over pictures. If a little text box appears...

"Hover" over any of the pictures. If a little text box appears, that's
the "alt" (alternate presentation) text associated with that picture.
For some small pictures, my browser doesn't appear to display the
alt text (and I note from the source that the text is wrong on several
icons (shown below); note that they all say "Printer-friendly format"!

Tesha

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[denese]

21. it does

My 18 year old son, totally blind, reads DU all the time.
Denese

[wtmusic]

11. Alt-text is the easiest thing in the world to add

It's just text that shows up onscreen before a picture loads.

[Deja Q]

6. Oh good. How long before other websites are targeted? Such as

www.adultbuddyfinder.com (not quite a real name of a matchmaking site)... indeed, there's a lot no amount of ALT text could even begin to compensate for... :crazy:

[karlrschneider]

8. Uh, how does he KNOW about it if it's inaccessable?

Maybe he should sue Jesus because he can't experience a sunset...
:eyes:

[lectrobyte]

13. Probably because every other website out there is accessible...

How do you think blind people surf the web? Google up screenreader and thank me for helping you learn about something new today. The one my friend used was called Jaws. Works pretty well.

[karlrschneider]

14. No offense intended, I guess I was being a little snarky though. Sorry.

...

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

9. Why Doesn't He Just Pay The Lawyer To Read The Stuff To Him.

He could save money on legal expenses, get what he wants and wouldn't have to waste people's friggin time.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Because, of course, he's the only blind person in the world

so it's better to get the lawyer to just help that one person, right?

[rucky]

16. they should do a website in braille.

think about it.

[T_Matamoro]

17. godd and bad.

i think that hadicapped should have access BUT where does it end? Why is it always about sueing and lawyers? What about other languages? noone who speaks a language that is not present on the website can access the site either. Should i sue cause they dont have acces for people who speak Klingon or esparanto???? :argh: Speaking of, anyone ever hook up to Klingon google?? it's funny as hell, nerdz rulez! ps you need klingon character support, hee-hee. :silly: KAPLA!

[KittyWampus]

23. I think it might end where business crosses line from employing X amount

of people and has Y amount of stores and generates Z amount of revenue annually.

Large corporations benefit greatly from our Fed, State and Local Tax Dollars.

They have the resources to make their stores and websites accessible from the get-go.

It's not like a small Mom & Pop store that'd have to shell out mega-bucks retrofitting.

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. Utter nonsense...

while he's at it he ought to sue web-only retailers for 'violating the civil rights' of people who don't have internet access.

[PabloLego]

20. get a life not a lawyer

Just a thought but why not take his business to another retailer who IS accomodating to individuals experiencing disability? Why sue? (I know I know...It's California. It's what they do there.) It's not like Target is the only store out there with a website. Sheesh get a life not a lawyer! by the way does this website coded IAW the ADA? Hmmm?

[KittyWampus]

24. Because ALL Corporations Benefit Greatly From Our Collective Tax Dollars

And there are laws about large corporations making their establishments accessible to the handicap.

It's the LEAST Target and big box stores can do... After putting America's Neighborhood stores out of business and gutting our down towns.

[CornField]

22. Been watching this and other cases with interest

I'm a webmaster for mostly governmental and non-profit entities. All of them have taken a "wait and see" approach to how ADA would be applied, if at all, to their web presence.

Most webmasters (at least the ones I've met through conference and other seminars) have done what they can, within their budgets, to keep their sites as accessible as possible. The problem is there are no laws or guidelines as to what is acceptable.

For instance, one government I'm contracted with launched an ADA Commission which accepts recommendations from the public. This has resulted in cut-down curbs, wheelchair ramps and so-forth. We've only had one sight-limited person come to the committee and speak about the web presence. That person requested we allow for user-controlled text. That is, a button which would allow text size to increase or decrease based on the user's preference. It was easy enough to initiate.

For the most part, webmasters just try to build their sites as downward compatible as possible and hope for the best (that the persons having difficulty accessing the sites will come to the entity before launching a lawsuit).