Accessibility Issue Comes to a Head
Frm: Computerworld - 05/08/2006
By: Carol Sliwa

Bruce Sexton Jr. has joined a lawsuit filed by the National Federation of the
Blind as a plaintiff alleging that the Target Web site violates the Americans
With Disabilities Act (ADA), the California Unruh Civil Rights Act, and the
Disabled Persons Act. Sexton, who is legally blind, claims that certain
information on Target's site cannot be read by his screen-reader software,
and that the site requires a mouse to navigate. The lawsuit is shaping up to
be a landmark referendum on Internet accessibility, since Target is only one
of many sites that could be accused of inhibiting access for the disabled,
according to the plaintiffs' attorneys. The problem has been exacerbated by
the shift from text-based to visually oriented content that is only likely to
continue with the emergence of Web 2.0 technology, which could update
information without refreshing the entire screen through the use of
Asynchronous JavaScript, XML, and Dynamic HTML. Assistive technology such as
screen readers and magnifiers would have no way of knowing what information
has been updated unless developers take steps to ensure that the updates are
readable. Working within the W3C, IBM is heading up a dynamic accessible Web
project calling for such measures as a development syntax that would relay
information about a site's accessibility to assistive technology applications
so they would know which parts of a Web page have been changed, though the
proposals are still in draft form. The Mozilla Foundation included support
for the technology in its Firefox 1.5 browser, but the forthcoming 7.0
version of Internet Explorer will not support it. Gartner's Ray Valdes claims
that most Fortune 500 companies are largely unaware of how accessible their
public Web sites are, and that cost is a prohibitive factor in improving
their accessibility. The lawsuit could finally clarify the question of
whether the ADA, enacted in 1990, applies to Web sites. 

Read the entire article at:
http://app001.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,111219,00.html

Links:
Target.com sued by blind student
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060213-6166.html

Target Sued for Lack of Accessibility for the Blind
http://www.eminentstyle.com/news/?p=3

Blind patrons sue Target for site inaccessibility
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6038123.html
http://news.com.com/2100-1030-6038123.html

National Federation of the Blind
http://www.nfb.org/

Blind Cal student sues Target
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/08/MNGO7H4VBP128.DTL

Ray Valdes
http://kiosk.gartner.com/sanfrancisco/main/agenda/bio.cfm?SpeakerID=131

