Re: Legal leg to stand on?

At 11:40 a.m. 03/19/99 -0500, Chaiken, Jessica wrote:
>However, their new version makes extensive
>use of Javascript to add important information (including <form> info).
>Visitors who are not JS-compatible (for whatever reason) cannot get full
>access to our information. [...]
>Here is my question: Inmagic's response to "what about backwards
>compatibility?" was "use the old version." Can I say to them "You're
>violating Title II of the ADA so shape up or else"? Is there legal
>precedence for this? (Inmagic is a US company) Where do I find this info?

My _guess_ is that you won't be able to use this approach on them.
I would suspect that an economic motive would work better rather
than a legal one -- see if you could explain to them that they
could very well be losing some business (ESPECIALLY lucrative
government contracts!) if they continue shipping a product that does
not promote accessibility.

Instead of saying, "You're in violation of the ADA", say, "Well, you
realize that we -- and other potential customers -- can't possibly
use this software without violating the law, right?"  And then see if
they're willing to change it.  If they're not going to do it with
that approach, they probably won't do it period, and you may indeed
have to change to a more accessible product.

(The HTML Writers Guild recently changed away from one web-based
messaging system to another due to accessibility -- and other --
problems.)


--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@hwg.org>
President, Governing Board Member
HTML Writers Guild <URL:http://www.hwg.org>

Received on Monday, 22 March 1999 21:22:36 UTC