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Judge Rules Sites Can Be Sued Over Design
BcNexus writes "According to the Associated Press, a California judge has ruled that a lawsuit brought against the Target Corporation may proceed under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The catch here is that the suit, leveled by the National Federation of the Blind, concerns the design of Target's website. Could this set a precedent and subsequent flood of lawsuits against websites? What if another design is not tractable?" From the article: "'What this means is that any place of business that provides services, such as the opportunity to buy products on a website, is now, a place of accommodation and therefore falls under the ADA,' said Kathy Wahlbin, Mindshare's Director of User Experience and expert on accessibility. 'The good news is that being compliant is not difficult nor is it expensive. And it provides the additional benefit of making accessible web sites easier for search engines to find and prioritize.'"
Smaller businesses can take years to squeeze the cost of a total site re-design out of their profits. A large, sprawling site that's been growing for years may not lend itself to anything other than a major piece of work. That's not to say the business shouldn't do it for other reasons (like SEO), but if they want to alienate some customers because for them, that's less expensive than a big IT project, that should be their call. Not a lawyers. I can't believe that any business not in the mood to do this doesn't have competition that is.
Of course, I smell some consulting blood in the water, here. On the other hand, one of my customers sells eyewear for sports. Somehow I don't think that redesigning their site for the blind is going to be high on their list. The irony is, they can still get sued anyway. Brilliant.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This is not a good thing, at all. How exactly do you define a 'service'? How do you define 'accessible'? The judge should have instead called for an extension of the ADA, with explicit description of what sites it applies to and what it means to be accessible.
I pretend to know more than I really do by mooching off google and wikipedia.
I'm considering adding braille to my website and building ramps between pages for those in wheelchairs.
That's the one good thing that can come out of this, I guess.
I pretend to know more than I really do by mooching off google and wikipedia.
This is one time where I would say that reading the article is a waste of time. In fact, the article is actually an advertisement for this Minshare outfit. There are eight paragraphs in the article and five of them are about Mindshare and nothing else. Can we please find better material for the front page of slashdot?
Maybe this'll get all those so called 'web designers' to realize that there's more to web sites than making them look pretty.
It's the same situation in the U.K. The Disability Discrimination Act specifies that any place of business must be accessible to people with disabilities (including web-sites).
I see the legislation as a "good thing", the internet is the great leveller, many people who otherwise would find it hard to make purchases or converse in real life find fewer barriers.
It goes further than just visually impaired visitors however, you have to take into account things like colour-blindness, essential tremor (so big chunky web 2.0 buttons are fine!).
All of our sites and web apps (including admin backends) have been fully DDA compliant for several years now. Being compliant makes business sense, it doesn't cost much more to build it in from the start and then you increase your potential client base - plus you get a warm fuzzy feeling when you know you're not preventing people from accessing your services.
I am NaN
For example my parents run a quit shop, not in the US so this doesn't apply, however it gets me thinking. They have a large amount of fabric online you can buy. It's just pictures and sku numbers. There's not any text descriptions. Why? Well that takes time to write, time they don't have. Their web person doesn't even keep up with the load of things to be done as it is, much less have the time to write up fabric descriptions.
So to say it "wouldn't be expensive" to do this is BS. They'd have to hire someone. That's expensive, especially considering they aren't making a profit right now. It also wouldn't be worth it, there are a whole lot of blind quilters since it is a visual medium. There's nothing stopping a blind person from doing it, of course, but it's hard to appreciate your work if you can't see it.
So ya, I'm sure the expense is minimal for large companies, but you've got to think about the small businesses too. When your entire web team is one person, and your entire staff is like 6 people, hiring another person IS expensive, really expensive.
Yahoo Finance News article has detailed information on the ruling.
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I can see this as ending poorly for site developers who use Flash. But, then. . .
Braile displays have been available for years now. In fact, the CSS 2 spec allows you to write one stylesheet targetting, say, visual displays, and other for braile.
I've been making a huge push for standards compliance - and it looks like those of us who still fight for it might finally have their voices heard. I just finished up a design contract for a hospital, recently - one where their current (soon to be old) website was all but easily usable by the blind.
For those of you who think that the blind don't surf, they do; Do you think TTS readers are just so you can make your computer say naughty words? There are numerous blind users on the web.
While transitioning from crap to standards compliance is a pain in the butt to do, once you are there, it is usually smooth sailing (assuming you have an experienced designer do the site). I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to manage some of my current web projects while using tables for layout, and whatnot.
Now, if only IE would catch up on the standards game..
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
As one of these "defective" people, I've often wondered about this myself. The end result, is that much of our survival is attributed to the same religious nutjobs that are trying to push creationism over natural selection in our schools. All human life is treated as sacred, regardless of just how far gone each particular human life is. All out of fear of judgement from a god that may not even exist beyond the human mind.
Of course, this isn't performed selflessly. Often times, these same people will try to guilt us for being an unnecessary burden on society or claim that our disability is the direct result of their god's divine punishment for sins we've committed/or are about to commit. (Such as the eventual rejection of the religion that repeatedly has shunned them in some form or another.)
The fact is, neither I, nor anyone else with a similar condition *asked* to be born as flawed beings. It was forced upon us without our consideration or consent. So when the time comes where demands payment for our survival in the form of baptism under their rules and we refuse, we're seen as embittered, ungrateful asshats for rejecting their definition of god.
And, in some sense, they're exactly right. Why should I be greatful to sadistic, omnipotent being who supposed has it within their power to prevent such severe disabilities, but chooses not to under the guise of serving some "greater purpose"? After all, I never asked for it, and no one ever consulted me ahead of time to tell me about the "fine print" in the contract of life prior to my birth.
Yeah, I'm a pessimist, and will probably end up in hell assuming this god stuff is even real. But at least I'll take with me the satisfaction of god having my blood on his hands for choosing not to do anything to help me or anyone else of my kind when he had the chance.
8==8 Bones 8==8
The reasonable tactic would have been to approach Target and offer to work with them to find a solution. Not only would it be cheaper for all sides in the short and long terms, but the positive light it would cast all parties in would bring everyone more money--more than enough to offset the costs of at least a partial site rebuild. In this case, the cheaper solution is the one that lets everyone win. Sadly, this fight is not about what's best for everyone. It's about sticking it to Target. That is how I think most people will see it.
Incidentally, the people who this is most dangerous for are the ones bringing the complaint. The opinion that people with disabilities want a free ride is not a small one, though almost always, it is wrong. Many, many people will remember this as Target being attacked, not as a last resort, but as an immediate and unwarranted response to a problem that is virtually non-existent. It will be incredibly difficult for this to be spun positively, and I fully expect that this particular disabilities advocacy group will see much smaller donations as a direct result of this lawsuit. Unfortunately, this train of thought doesn't even stop in the minds of the people responsible for the lawsuit. They have no idea how much damage they are really doing to their cause.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
Can you sue over designs that are so obnoxious they cause you to go blind?
I can only see this as ending poorly for site developers.
You mean they'll have to provide a simple text only alternative to the site? Uh, oh, that's like -so- bad for everyone involved.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Should people have a RIGHT to minimum wage or decent working conditions? Workers can always choose to work for a different company, or not work at all
Should people have a RIGHT to not have their medical records released to everybody? We can always choose to not use a health care provider that doesn't protect privacy.
Protection laws such as minimum wage or ADA were enacted to address the gaps between social responsibility and the free market.
Just look at the Interstate Commerce clause in the Constitution.
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Just a few years ago, a federal judge ruled that the ADA only applies to physical spaces. From the article:
In the first case of its kind, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz said the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies only to physical spaces, such as restaurants and movie theaters, and not to the Internet.
"To expand the ADA to cover 'virtual' spaces would be to create new rights without well-defined standards," Seitz wrote in a 12-page opinion dismissing the case. "The plain and unambiguous language of the statute and relevant regulations does not include Internet Web sites."
Since you now have a couple of federal judges in different districts disagreeing with each other, the Supreme Court may ultimately decide this one.
The reasonable tactic would have been to approach Target and offer to work with them to find a solution. Not only would it be cheaper for all sides in the short and long terms, but the positive light it would cast all parties in would bring everyone more money--more than enough to offset the costs of at least a partial site rebuild. In this case, the cheaper solution is the one that lets everyone win. Sadly, this fight is not about what's best for everyone. It's about sticking it to Target. That is how I think most people will see it.
I think you have a somewhat optimistic view of how a company like Target would respond to such a request. I think a more likely response would be that they would say that they're definitely interested in building a more accessible site, that they'll get to it when time allows, a short flurry of memos would be distributed among the website people stating such, and then it would be forgotten about by the time the next redesign came around and nothing would end up happening.
Doing it that way would definitely be cheaper for Target, and probably cheaper for the disabled, but runs the serious risk of resulting in absolutely no change at all. In truth, there's nothing in the story that indicates what kind of contact they may have had with Target prior to filing suit (there's really nothing much in the story at all), so they may well have attempted to pursue that option but ended up having to file suit anyway.
The reasonable tactic would have been to approach Target and offer to work with them to find a solution. Not only would it be cheaper for all sides in the short and long terms
They did. Target refused to make any reasonable effort to make their site accessible.
"The NFB wrote to Target in May, asking it to make the site more accessible, according to the plaintiffs. Negotiations broke down in January, which led to the filing of the lawsuit, the organization said."
I know that bashing lawyers is instinctual for some people, but at least think first, OK?
What scares *me* is knee-jerk reactions like yours. Do you realize that the ADA limits lawsuits so that the owner has to make improvements, but the plaintif can't get damages? All the lawsuit is is a way to force property owners to comply with the law.
And in this case it's working exact like it was designed.
And any web designer who didn't do it the right way has only themselves to blame, because the ADA was passed in 1990.
This wasn't a decision that websites have to be "accessable". The judge just refused to dismiss the suit in the preliminary stages. The judge also refused to compel Target to make the site "accessable" during the litigation. So this just means that there's enough of a question to proceed to trial. It's not a "decision". Computerworld has a better story on this.
they complain about an inherently visual medium not being accessable enough
How is the web an inherently visual medium? It's based entirely on textual data, with support for graphics bolted on to make it prettier. The important things at the Target website are lists of store locations, operating hours, phone numbers, and that's what they were sued over. You don't need a picture to tell someone the address of your store. You don't need a picture to tell someone which brands of irons you carry and how much each model costs. You *should* add pictures of items to increase sales, since people generally like to see what they're buying, but blind people accept that limitation.
This is, quite frankly, a perfectly sensible ruling and something web developers have been warning companies about for nearly a decade. This is not some crazy fringe group out to cause trouble, this is a problem we've all known about for years and years but too many people ignored because it was cheaper or easier to cross your fingers than follow sound advice (although ironically enough, a well-designed (and therefore accessible) site will be cheaper and easier in the long run because of easier maintenance and adaptability).
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I see a lot of comments lambasting the lawsuit, but I have to say I don't see the problem.
Making a site 508 compliant is not really all that hard and it essentially consists of making sure your site validates as XHTML 1.0 (preferably 1.0 Strict) or even better, XHTML 1.1. Do that and you are about 90% of the way there. The rest consists of actually knowing html and using it correctly. Learn to use labels, fieldsets, and other html elements that have been largely ignored, despite being quite useful. Actually use the alt tags for images of consequence. In other words, if you've designed a site that complies with web standards, you have little to worry about with this lawsuit. If you haven't, then now you know why we have and push standards. Consider it a lesson learned and move forward a wiser developer.
The only downside to writing a site to be 508 compliant is that AJAX must be used carefully. Screen readers still don't detect client-side content changes well, so client-side dynamic content is slightly more limited, requiring a few more postbacks that you would normally use. But if you know what you are doing, those sorts of "intrusions" to your normal programming work are almost inconsequential. One caveat: Don't trust that Visual Studio 2005 and IIS will give you compliant code, even if they say they will. They won't.
You need to know a little something about real web development but the end your site will be better, cleaner, and more easily maintainable. I've done it. It's ain't that hard.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
-Tom
It's cheaper, easier, and more efficient to design the site in the first place so that it falls back to an accessible view in a text-based web browser, screen reader, or braille terminal. You also get a lot more choice in design via CSS with your semantic XHTML (although you might need to throw in a few div's to prevent it from looking like complete ass in IE, but that could also be done via DOM manipulation, so whatever).
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
So, according to you, it's perfectly OK if stores put up "NO BLACKS" signs again?
How about a gas station refusing to sell gas to handicapped people who can't operate the pump themselves? They can always push their car with their wheelchair over to the next gas station...
Or how about web sites like
Check out Target's site. On the first screen, there are four words of text: "Sign In" and "New Guest." The stuff that looks like text really isn't, it's been saved as GIFs. There's also a big ol' Flash thing there. The second screen has actual text: the bulleted items are, even though the menu on the left isn't. Also the navigation panel at the bottom uses text. You can verify this by trying to select the "text." (For links, just make sure to move the pointer over a different link before you let go of the mouse button.) If you can select individual letters, it's actual text.
I'm definitely impressed by Target's committment to stupidity. Most people wouldn't bother taking the extra time to turn plain, unenhanced Tahoma text into a bunch of 1.5KB GIFs. I mean, it makes the site 500 times bigger, it makes the site unusable by people with vision problems, it takes probably 10 times longer since you have to do it in Photoshop, and I bet they had to spend hours fiddling with the code to make everything line up properly. Most people would bail when they realized precisely how stupid an idea this was, but not Target! When they were done, they just wanted to know what stupid thing they could do next! "Hey guys, let's challenge this lawsuit that we patently have no chance whatsoever of winning! We're still going to lose, but now it'll cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and a bunch of bad publicity!"
*shrug*, you're entitled to your extreme libertarian opinion. Most of modern civilization disagrees with you, they believe businesses benefit from some government policies that protect their private interests, and in exchange they're expected to live up to other policies that serve the public interest.
Or, to put it in your own words, No one has a right to start a store. Period. If you don't like the fact that we chose to make you follow requirements, then vote with your feet/money and start a store elsewhere. If we cut out enough business, we will either change the laws or go bankrupt and be conquered. This applies to ANY limit place on who may open a store. If we are stupid enough to limit who can start a store, then we have to live with it. But stores have NO business coming in and telling us to change it. Period.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
The requirement will be that all websites be renderable by a reader, if Target loses the suit (all that has happened so far is that a Target motion to dismiss the case was not granted). The judge also denied a preliminary injunction to require Target to make their website accessible immediately.
This is not trivial. There are programs that will read web pages and then pump them out through a voice synthesizer. The trouble is that the reader programs can't understand all HTML. I've forgotten the details of what fails, but I remember deciding I never wanted to work on a 508-compliant web site. 508 is a separate set of accessibility regulations for government websites. Information can't be just graphic, for example. On one hand, this is essentially adding another type of browser. But it is more complicated than ms vs. netscape, because you have to have a version of each page that doesn't use graphics.
I see this as beside the point.
The web is meant as a free-for-all where everything exists, and only the worst illegal activities really draw fire.
If a business has a site which doesn't play nice with certain disability accessibility tools, they shouldn't be sued. I don't know what auxilliary benefit flows to the defendant besides "just buying my sweater", but I would be terrified if this spawned a Professional Disabled Litigator.
Wait, that makes my head spin. Isn't the definition of "disability" something that seriously impairs functioning with no clear upside? I can't BEGIN to calculate the consequences of law firms hiring every person ever tagged with a disability to begin testing sites with their accessibility tools. "Nope. This site is incoherent. Case # 1653265. Next!" We all know that Law firms have THE most abusive labor rate ever. Couple this with an unlimited caseload, and suddenly you become able to make a million dollars a year if you are disabled. "Hm. I can work at McDonalds, or I can visit Iraq, doing my Patriotic Duty, get something nasty in my eyes, and make a million a year suing companies for noncompliant websites. "
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine