Slashdot Mirror
Proposed ADA Requirements May Affect Public Internet Use
An anonymous reader writes "The Associated Press is reporting on federal officials who want to expand the application of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to require accommodations by public websites, call centers, and technology providers. Hearings are scheduled in Chicago, Washington, and San Francisco. New rules could be implemented as soon as 2012. 'For more than a decade, the Justice Department has interpreted the ADA to apply to websites that offer goods and services. But now that idea could be clarified, and timetables for compliance could be set. ... The Justice Department is considering making it clear that some personal, noncommercial content would not be affected.'"
There are too many flashy (pun intended) websites without any secondary way of seeing them. A proper public website should be navigable with a screen reader. As "Web 2.0" has marched on, it has only gotten worse. Some are even so user hostile that even those wanting a bit of privacy without Flash or javascript enabled are simply locked out.
Exceptions should be made for personal pages, but for organizations, governments, and commerce sites that deal with the public, there shouldn't be any excuse.
--
BMO
I've worked on a number of projects where we were explicitly ordered not to "waste our time" with anything that would help the disabled to use our web sites. There wasn't much we could do other than sneak in things that we thought the management wouldn't notice.
Maybe it's time that people with more clout than us mere developers let the managers know that something a bit more, uh, civilised is expected of them.
We can't do it on our own, even if we want to.
(Actually, I'm currently doing some pro bono work for some nonprofits that involves making their web sites more accessible. A curious part of this is that they've mostly been persuaded by the growing number of people carrying a "smart phone", and it's getting through their heads that web pages forced to width=1200 or requiring javascript are limiting their audience. While we're at it, maybe we can sneak in even more stuff that helps the visually impaired, etc.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
This is what I thought until I did have to actually make standards compliant websites. I'm a web designer/developer for a government dept (not in the US though), and they require all websites and content to be accessible to those with disabilities and in regional areas with extremely low-bandwidth connections. I thought this would be hard, but making something standards compliant is really just a matter of checking a few extra things here and there, and adding a couple of extra features here and there, that's all it takes. It is actually less tedious and time-consuming than making a site work consistently across browsers. Got a video or audio file? Subtitle it or add a document which has a transcription. That's the hearing impaired taken care of. Low bandwidth audience? Compress those images and use them sparingly. Visually impaired? Make sure your designs have good text-background contrast, maybe add a text size changer in the website, and that's the low-level guys taken care of. For the completely blind, you just have to make sure your alt tags are in there, your CSS isn't a cryptic/poorly constructed clusterfuck and things are intuitively labelled.
Only problem I have is that I have to buy a license for JAWS so I can test out my stuff on it; otherwise i use NVDA (open source & free download) just to make sure it's basically good.
Well I kind of see the point of those who say the government shouldn't force private businesses to run their business a certain way. But I also see that that is the same argument of the manager who refused to serve black customers at the Woolworth's lunch counter.
It boils down to the age-old questions: the conservative asks "what kind of government can we tolerate?" and the liberal asks "what kind of society do we want to be?"
So I think you're going too far to say "there shouldn't be any excuse --" private property rights and general freedom from government interference are strong and valid arguments. On the other hand I don't want to turn back the clock to 1963, either. Life is better with civil rights legislation. It's easier to be proud to be an American. So I'm inclined to take your side and say to Web site operators, "suck it up, follow the law."
I also think the government should be the first to implement its own usability requirements... stating with the Web site of the court that handed down this decision.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
HTML and CSS can not accomplish what the ADA is demanding.
Think about screen reader technology for the blind. Today even the best of these can not even handle a mildly complex page. I've tried them out at a friends house.
So, people will be encouraged to stop making needlessly overcomplicated sites. It sounds like nothing of value will be lost.
They are crap.
Assuming you mean the sites that don't work well when spoken, then yes. Assuming you mean the readers, then I disagree.
But it doesn't stop at your content. You are also responsible for all the advertising on your site, even when you don't create that advertising. Why should you serve a page without advertising to the blind? If that's how you make money for your site, you need to serve the ads to everyone.
How do you serve music to the deaf? Hmmm mmmm dum de dumm ta ta de da mmmm de mmmm?
And how do you serve online game content to the guy typing with his one hand, or his feet.
If you think this is easy, why don't you try it. The tools don't yet exist to do this in any economical way. If enforced to the letter, this serves only to drive most product advertising and support services off the web, shut down thousands of hobby sites, and shutter eCommerce.
I doubt you'll actually get many complaints for lack of advertising, especially considering that isn't really your "content." I've never heard of an ADA case where a blind person complained that they couldn't read a posted advertising flyer on a bulletin board in a store. If it does mean that the horrible chain of dozens of domains and layers of Javascript for ads has to go away so you just serve your ads yourself, meh. I'm still having trouble finding a lot of problems with this. You serve music to the deaf the same way you do everybody else. They just won't listen to it. Wall-Mart sells music on CD's. Deaf people are allowed to buy them. WalMart doesn't have to have employees to interpretive dance on command for deaf people who want to buy a CD but can't hear it. How do you serve content to the guy with one hand? Same way as everybody else. He'll probably just suck at league play against people who can push more buttons faster.
ADA compliance isn't about making every cripple get to win the Super Bowl, and every blind person win an Academy award for cinematography. It's about making minimal reasonable accommodations so that a person can live their life to the extent that is sensible. The government is involved, so there will probably be a few inane edge cases, but the basic principle here seems sound.
ADA is itself a messed up system that doesn't make anything any better for most people, only adds to the cost of doing business often to the point of driving people out of business.
Locally there is a lawyer and a "disabled" person who do nothing but sue anyone for anything that is not ADA compliant. Wheel chair ramp off by 1% ?? Rail bar off by 1", door not exactly right ... anything.
All the guy does is drive around town suing people. It doesn't help the "disabled" it only helps the one guy, the and his own pocketbook. Meanwhile the cost he's adding to the businesses has put several out of business. Nice huh?
And not one disabled person complained, not one had problems getting service because THAT is not the issue, the issue is "legal compliance" and getting whatever fixed doesn't stop the lawsuit, because it isn't a "fixit" type thing. So they sue, and get their pound of flesh. It is a racket.
Guess what, being disabled sucks. We should try to help people as best we can, but when asshats like the one lawyer and the "disabled" guy he sues for come knocking on your door, don't come complaining to me.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
If you knew anything about how the technology works, you would know that closed captioning at theaters is a matter of installing a LED projector at the back of the theater and providing the viewers with a plexiglass reflector that they stick into their cup holder. It is not a question of retrofitting every seat. The tech is dirt cheap.
And even as cheap as it is, in the greater metro Seattle area, there are only 4 theaters that have it. And not 4 theater complexes. Literally 4 theaters. For example, the 11-screen complex in Pacific Place has a single theater equipped with it. And most the time, the complex choses not to present movies with captions in that particular theater, and pretty much never does so on weekends. If the theaters equipped more movies with the captioning devices, I would go to the movies more often. But the fact is that the market power of deaf and hard of hearing people isn't big enough to warrant it.
Mandating companies to take reasonable measures to accommodate the needs of disabled patrons when the market can't is part of belonging to a civilized society.
How about a compromise then? How about only the sites where those with disabilities HAVE TO go to to have basic functionality in society? I'm talking things like government service sites, sites where things such as recalls and other issues that a person would need for their safety, things like that? Same as my late sister didn't care if she couldn't get her wheelchair up some stairs to some old clothing store than had been there since the dawn of time, but DID care that she was able to get in somewhere to cash her checks, buy her food, just the basic things one needs to get through their day.
The problem is nearly all businesses would do absolutely nothing to help the disabled if there wasn't SOME government force at work. So I think there has to be some way to find a middle ground that will allow those like my late sister access to services required to function, while at the same time not going overboard and expecting say...subtitles generating for every WAV file on the net. But to me a good example of who should be forced to comply would be the telecos that want to get rid of phone books and make them all online. Fine by me, but make sure ALL can access this resource, otherwise they should have to ask if there is a disabled person in the house and ask if they want to have new phone books dropped off before switching to some opt in system.
Nobody is asking the web designers to make the blind see, the deaf hear. Just a little compassion and effort to find a common ground that both could be happy with. After all most handicapped folks just want to get through their day just like you, without having to beg for help to survive. Without the ADA my sister wouldn't have been even able to buy her own food because none of the stores had doors or aisles big enough for a person in a chair. When I was a kid you never saw someone in a chair, simply because there wasn't any place they could go. And I think we can all agree there are plenty of sites on the Internet that are becoming just as much an intregal part of daily life as shopping and going to the bank were IRL. Sites like insurance, government, phone and other billing sites, etc. Surely we can find a common ground here.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The one blind person I once tutored at my university completely ignored all those signs -- she had no way of knowing they were there, and she didn't spend time groping the walls looking for signs that might or might not be there. Elevator buttons and such yes, but random wall signs no.
That's like arguing against safety in mines because "duh, mines are risky to work in." After all, if someone picks to be a miner, they know what they are getting into and shouldn't have any outside health and safety standards.
Learn to love Alaska
San Francisco?
In Architecture studio, they made us go around campus in a wheelchair for a day. It takes about 10 minutes to realize that there are stupid barriers put up that people with full mobility don't see every day. A 36" wide library aisle was a great lesson, after all the gawdawful ramps people put it, and one of my favorites, the curb cuts on the sidewalk that point into the center of an intersection.
While the population in wheelchairs might (clearly doesn't) justify many of these measures, some of them make the world a better place-- gentle ramps make it easier with strollers and rolling luggage, wider aisles make it easier to see books/merchandise, and I am a fan of having the toilet an extra couple inches off the ground, and a little bit of elbow room in the stall.
Other things make less sense or transfer hazards. The truncated domes on crosswalks pose a hazard to women in heels; many places are forced to dedicate too much parking to "universal access" stalls; and our society has developed an unnatural addiction to elevators. Small establishments (under 2,000 square feet) have a number of hurdles to overcome.
Not quite sure NYC's "with assistance" solution is the right way to go, but there is room in the middle.
I'm all for making sure handicapped people have access to necessary services... however *requiring* movie theaters to provide closed captioning devices at every seat is ridiculous. Watching a movie is is not a life necessity. If the demand is there, and the people that need it are willing to pay a price that makes business sense, then the theaters will have Closed captioning equipment. If it doesn't make business sense, then they won't.
I think another poster more knowledgeable as to the technology vis a vis the deaf punched a hole in that, so I'll defer to the expert there.
What the fuck is with the government wanting to tell *PRIVATE* business who they have to make non-mandatory (ie. entertainment) products available to?
Can you think of another minority to which a broad array of what you'd call non-essential services are denied? As an example, we'll take the on-demand service provided by my cable company. There is absolutely no way I can access that service through my set top box without having someone sighted present ... which translates, really, to "no way that I can access the service through my set top box". Unfortunately, "letting the market decide" there is a bit problematic, since a large chunk of that market, and a large chunk of various television providers, think that blind people don't watch TV. If I had to wait for the collective ignorance of a society that generally defecates themselves when faced with my condition, or generally finds my navigating our local public transit system to get to work of a morning "an inspiration", to catch up with reality, I'd be waiting a couple of centuries.
ADA is mostly bullshit anyways. Hey, let's also make sure we have a wheel chair ramp for bungee jumping, because you never know when some cripple with deteriorating bones might want to plunge down a hundred feet with only their legs attached to a giant rubber band.
Oh, wonderful comparison. I'll not spell out the differences between lack of access because of a safety issue (no one with bones that fragile should be bungee jumping) and lack of access because of an ignorance issue (But wait! That iPhone has a touch screen! Wouldn't you rather have a special phone for the blind?)
Why not require the same Closed captioning devices for normal theater (plays) as well? How about all sporting events too? Gotta have CC devices at the seats so you can hear the refs calls.
Why not?
Maybe we need to throw some braille street signs in there too, wouldn't want the blind to be discriminated against when driving a car, you know?
There needs to be an equivalent to "Godwin's Law" to describe the invocation of either blind people driving (impossible due to current technological limitations) or blind people watching TV (possible, but assumed to be impossible) when these discussions come up. Looking at this logically, which you've completely failed to do here, if there were a means for blind people to be able to drive (cf. Google's self-driving cars), wouldn't it be more cost-effective to use, say, existing GPS infrastructure, already established map providers, and other existing technology? The navigation system to mitigate the lack of ability to see street signs is already in place (it's what allows me to download a map, copy it to my phone, and travel anywhere I take a notion).
The bottom line is, if there is money to be made, some company *will* do it voluntarily. If the market can't support it, oh well, tough break, it doesn't happen.
Again, that presupposes that the site's creator even presumes that blind people can use the Web. I'd wager that, until about five seconds before you read these