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Web Accessibility Gets a Boost In California Court
The Register is reporting on developments in a California court case pitting blind users against the retailer Target over the lack of accessibility of Target.com. (We discussed the matter on two occasions last year.) The case is being brought under a federal statute, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and two California laws that are somewhat broader. Even though Target has made improvements to the site since losing the first phase in court, the judge has just ruled that the case is eligible for class-action status. The end result could be mandated accessibility for for all Web sites reachable by visually impaired users in California.
I mean, aren't all online retailers doing exactly the same thing? Selling stuff. You have a database of stuff. Different fields, etc... you just plop them in a template. So you have a regular website template and one for disability. Is that so hard? The only problem is, that people don't think about these things upfront and it leads to bad design.
Which makes me think, do they have standards documents for creating a disability accessible website? What all is involved? And what about amazon's "look inside" function? There is no way a text to speech algorithm can read those books because they are images.
Or how do I (reliably) block all users from California?