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Giving the Blind Better Web Access

Posted by samzenpus on from the web-for-all dept.

crimeandpunishment writes "Decades ago, the breakthrough for the disabled was making buildings wheelchair accessible. Today, it's making their world Web-accessible. Disabled groups are hailing new legislation Congress has sent to the President. Among other things, the measure will give the blind greater Internet access through smart phones, and require devices like iPhones and Blackberrys to be hearing-aid compatible. 'It breaks down barriers for all of us,' says Mark Richert of the American Foundation for the Blind."

6 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. New blacktop for the road to hell by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These sorts of well-intentioned pieces of legislation are the kind of thing that ostensibly are for our betterment and they always look great on paper. But when you're actually have to design a website and you start running into the requirements of Section 508 and other such well-meaning laws, the feel-good shine wears off fast. Inevitably they mean considerably more work in the best case scenario, and a "dumbing down" of a website in the worst case scenario (if you follow the "suggested" best-practices). You can look at the "cultural heritage" laws in Quebec as an example of where good intentions can go. It starts off with a noble goal of not excluding French-speakers from public life, and eventually leads to something like Bill 101, which all but outlawed English in the region, complete with a language gestapo.

    I'm all for the blind being able to use the web. But wouldn't it be much better to approach the issue as a technological one on the viewer's end, and not a legislative one on the designer's end? I would much rather be asked to do something that TOLD to do it, under threat of law.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:New blacktop for the road to hell by Peach+Rings · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This used to be a really evil thing, but now it's a blessing in disguise. The right way of making a web page (nice clean <p>s and unordered lists, alts on all the images, styled with CSS) is extremely accessible. The more people do that, the better!

    2. Re:New blacktop for the road to hell by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm at a conference about accessibility right now and I was just looking at the giant display of the history of disability, so I'm getting a kick out of your post.

      Seriously, without legislative mandates pushing this kind of thing, the disabled will just continue to be overlooked by the big vendors and ripped off by small vendors. We are doing things with iOS 4 and iPad for $4-600 that a year ago we had to spend $5000-7500 on.

      With a law forcing this, the tech will get cheaper and better.

    3. Re:New blacktop for the road to hell by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 4, Informative

      Will we all be stuck with text only websites, which is what Section 508 virtually sets up as the ideal.

      No. It's called graceful degradation. You can have all the fancy shit you want but your webpage should be a coded in a way that if certain features aren't available that it gracefully degrades into a simpler form.

  2. Analytics reporting blind users? by snsh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google Analytics tells me that I got 20k visitors yesterday. Four of them used NS4. 1500 of them used IE6. There are few NS4 users that I honestly don't care how my site renders in their browser. There are enough IE6 users that I do have to care how my site renders in their browser.

    How can I get Google Analytics to tell me how many of my visitors are blind and using screen-readers?

  3. Re:I am all for just by Zerth · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's one: Tom Mundy and his lawyer Morse Mehrban both make an estimated $300,000 a year suing small businesses

    Mundy says he has filed more than 150 lawsuits in 18 months demanding damages from small businesses in violation of the exacting requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
    [...]
    Mundy, a beefy ex-contractor with longish brown hair and a daily routine of dining out and enjoying the ocean, spies an 8-inch concrete platform on which a woman in a dark-green sari has set up a table of sunglasses under an awning.

    "There's nothing in there that I'd want to buy but this might be of interest to a judge," 50-year-old Mundy, a paraplegic since a 1988 motorcycle accident in Maryland, observed with a knowing air.

    [...]
    "Confined to a wheelchair in California?" Mehrban asks potential clients on his website, www.mehrban.com. "You may be entitled to $1,000 each time you can't use something at a business because of your disability."