Deaf / Blind Sue: Websites Legally Obligated to Cater to Disabled

[presence]

Advocates for disabled Americans have declared that companies have a legal obligation to make their websites as accessible as their stores, and they've filed suits across the country to force them to install the digital version of wheelchair ramps and self-opening doors.

The U.S. Department of Justice is expected

to issue new regulations on website accessibility

later this year that could take a broad view of the ADA's jurisdiction over websites.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324373204578374483679498140.html?m od=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

I'm a fan of people doing this on their own.



That could mean websites will be required to include spoken descriptions of photos and text boxes for the blind, as well as captions and transcriptions of multimedia features for the deaf, said Jared Smith, associate director of WebAIM, a nonprofit group that trains and evaluates companies on Web accessibility.


Things like that help websites for a number of reasons.

Here's where it gets really stupid... who judges whether your photo descriptions are accurate?

[Lucille]

Insane.

[VBRonPaulFan]

lol, whatever regulations they try to push through on this will never ever be addressed. as a web developer of a site with thousands and thousands of pages, it'd be basically near impossible to get all our old pages ARIA compliant. that's a design decision you need to make extremely early on, and be prudent along the entire development process to ensure you don't miss any pages/steps.

and then there are the 'recommended guidelines' like making clickable areas much larger, larger text and more visible font, etc that don't match site themes or that would destroy a well thought layout of a site. what a mess.

[heavenlyboy34]

facepalm @ ADA SMH. Do they not know that people are already working on programs for this kind of thing? There's a popular program called Dragon(?) which allows users to control almost everything by voice. If these dumbasses would just be patient, someone would find a way to help the disabled.

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

That could mean websites will be required to include spoken descriptions of photos and text boxes for the blind, as well as captions and transcriptions of multimedia features for the deaf...

I didn't make it clear enough, but blind people already surf the net with readers. When there is an image, their reader often reads the alt tag of an image. In order to make that useful for a blind person with a screen reader, the alt tags have to be an accurate description of the image. They are often not even slightly accurate. Nor will they ever be, really.

[thoughtomator]

The amount of work necessary to do something like this would make the whole Y2K affair seem like a weekend picnic.

This will be just an arbitrarily enforced regulation directed against political enemies and competitors of political allies.

[emazur]

I've seen this kind of shit before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Federation_of_the_Blind_v._Target_Corpora tion

On September, 2008, the parties reached a settlement, stipulating that further changes would be made to the Target.com website and related policies, and establishing a $6,000,000 settlement fund to compensate members of the California subclass. The parties also agreed that Target would pay the plaintiffs’ reasonable attorneys' fees and litigation costs in an amount to be determined by the court. On August 3, 2009, Judge Patel awarded $3,738,864.96 in attorney’s fees and costs to the plaintiffs. The court substantiated the award by declaring that “Plaintiffs have broken new ground in an important area of law” and noting that “plaintiffs’ litigation strategy involved the extension of important areas of disability law into an emerging form of electronic commerce that promises to grow in importance.”
NFB awards NFB-NVA gold certification to Target

On February 9th, 2010 The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), the nation's leading advocate for Internet access by blind Americans, awarded the Gold Level NFB-NVA Certification to Target.com. The NFB and Target have worked diligently in partnership to help ensure equal access is given to Target.com products and information to blind consumers and The NFB commended Target's leadership in Web accessibility.

Unfortunately, the collectivists collective action of targeting Target ultimately worked (as far as they're concerned).

Collectivists gonna collect.

[Anti Federalist]

LOL - I was wondering how they were gonna kill the internet.

Well, that's that, except for "approved" content from global hyper mega corps and government, of course.

[AGRP]

How did they get news before the internet? Will paper newspapers be required to install electronic readers in each paper?

[mad cow]

This could really slow down First Person Shooter games.

[heavenlyboy34]

This could really slow down First Person Shooter games.
and pr0n.

[tod evans]

Gates needs to step up to the plate and introduce braille friendly monitors..

[QuickZ06]

and pr0n.


What does blind man fap to?

[MelissaWV]

Gates needs to step up to the plate and introduce braille friendly monitors..

There are already readers of this nature. They are ridiculously expensive, but really awesomely useful for reading and keeping information handy. The displays are pretty interesting.

http://www.haverhilllionsclub.org/nicksopportunties/brailleNoteBT32_demo-Four-view.jpg

[MRK]

Internet Tax Bill + Cyberspace Disability Compliance = Brave New Internet

Now I see what they're going to target with those millions of square feet of fedcoat/cyberspy space they've been building for the past some years out west.

[presence]

There are already readers of this nature. They are ridiculously expensive, but really awesomely useful for reading and keeping information handy. The displays are pretty interesting.



That’s why [David Pankhurst] is working on a low-cost alternative. His offering is an open source version he calls the Audrey Braille Display (http://www.utopiamechanicus.com/545/open-source-hardware-braille-display/)...

[phill4paul]

LOL - I was wondering how they were gonna kill the internet.

Well, that's that, except for "approved" content from global hyper mega corps and government, of course.

Get outta my head.

Cut and bled out by the millions of paper cuts from the tomes of legislation. Just like every damn thing else.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Anti Federalist again.

[Anti Federalist]

Get outta my head.

Cut and bled out by the millions of paper cuts from the tomes of legislation. Just like every damn thing else.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Anti Federalist again.

Sorry man...we're like, having this "Shining" thing going on today.

Like it really takes ESP to figure this out, when the fucking warning signs are 150 feet tall in blazing orange neon and strobe lights.

[presence]

Get outta my head.

Cut and bled out by the millions of paper cuts from the tomes of legislation. Just like every damn thing else.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Anti Federalist again.




I totally see this internet being reborn on petabyte flash drives that people "kiss" other flash drives acting like a swarm hive-intelligence which shares information and "iterations" of the www cryptographically via p2p interconnected wifi hotspots; a techno-sexual information orgy revolution.

Its so coming.

In a 3D printed package bought with bitcoins.

[phill4paul]

Sorry man...we're like, having this "Shining" thing going on today.

Like it really takes ESP to figure this out, when the fucking warning signs are 150 feet tall in blazing orange neon and strobe lights.

http://www.christianhomeandfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/1000.jpg

[dillo]

It would be kind of amusing for porn