Target Settles Accessibility Lawsuit with National Federation of the Blind (NFB) August 29, 2008
Posted by debbiepascoe in accessibility, usability, web design.Tags: accessibility, adobe, Flash, NFB, Target
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August 27, 2008 – Target settled the suit brought against it in 2006 in California by the National Federation of the Blind.
Jared Smith’s article on the WebAIM site provides a summary of the settlement, commentary, and opinions of some WebAIM readers.
Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Access to Web sites is critical to the full and equal participation of blind people in all aspects of modern life. The National Federation of the Blind is pleased to have reached a settlement with Target that is good for all blind consumers, and we recognize that Target has already taken action to make certain that its Web site is accessible to everyone. We look forward to working with Target in the coming months to help make additional improvements that will enhance the experience of blind visitors to Target.com. It is our sincere hope that other businesses providing goods and services over the Internet will follow Target’s example and take affirmative steps to provide full access to their Web sites by blind consumers.”
“We feel that it is a wake-up call to companies that have Web sites that are selling goods and services,” said Christopher S. Danielsen, a spokesman at the NFB. “They need to pay attention to accessibility. It is the right thing to do.” He also pointed out that the benefits of attracting new users far outweigh the costs of making changes to the site…Danielsen said that currently there are many retail sites that are “at least somewhat accessible” to the blind, but there’s more work to be done.
Back to WebAIM, their site contains excellent, detailed information about accessibility issues surrounding PDF and Flash, how they can be made accessible, as well as challenges and shortcomings.
I also recently ran across information about a browser specifically designed for visually impaired persons, called WebAnywhere.
Webguild tried it out and provided some observations.
The challenge of organizations to make their sites accessible is not going away. In looking at the comments above, I believe that the NFB, which has right on their side, is pretty comfortable being proactive on this front. Most, if not all, of the states have already passed or are considering legislation. Even though this settlement did nothing to clarify ADA Section 508 requirements where corporates are concerned, individual states have not stood still. Because of that, the NFB has plenty of other venues to press their case, if (when) they identify other opportunities to raise awareness.
Your comments/thoughts/observations welcome…..
Judge Allows Accessibility Suit to Proceed October 4, 2007
Posted by debbiepascoe in accessibility, search, search engine optimization, web analytics.Tags: accessibility, lawsuit, search, search optimization, Target
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To update a previous story, a federal judge in California has certified the suit brought by National Federation of the Blind against Target, and rejected Target’s motion for summary judgement.
The progress of this case will be closely watched. If NFB prevails, the issue of accessibility will extend past federal and state agencies and become much more of a concern to corporates than it has been to date.
Corporates shouldn’t wait until the outcome of the case, though, to put accessibility on their radar. A more accessible site is also more searchable, more easily indexed by major search engines, more likely to be found and visited. The more visited it is, the more “traffic” it has, and the more opportunities to generate a lead or a sale, allow customers, employees and investors to self-serve, thereby reducing calls and the costs associated with them. It’s not a simple one-for-one equation – an organization that takes the approach to accessibility as a point problem with a point solution is leaving money on the table.
As with so many things in the web space, accessibility is not an isolated, unrelated-to-other-site-characteristics issue. Some people would have you believe that the only reason to pay attention to accessibility is because it impacts one discrete group of stakeholders and the only reason organizations have done it to date is as a defensive move – to avoid lawsuits. I reject this view, and prefer to advocate a view that doing “the right thing” has broader benefits to the organization.
The essence of synergy is producing a whole that is more valuable than the sum of it’s parts. Accessibility is a “part”. Search optimization is a “part”. Transitioning from call centers to online self-serve is a “part”. Utilizing techniques and best practices that address these parts will result in a larger benefit to the organization as a whole.
