Update on Target Web Accessibility Lawsuit

This is an update on members of this list following the NFB v. Target web
accessibility lawsuit filed here in California.   The US Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit has denied Target's petition for an interlocutory
appeal of the District Court order granting class action certification.
This means that the web accessibility lawsuit will move forward on behalf of
all Americans as well as all Californians who are blind.

 

Further information about this effort can be found at the NFB website at
www.nfb.org <http://www.nfb.org/>  and at www.dralegal.org
<http://www.dralegal.org/> .

 

Best regards,

Cynthia Waddell 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------

Cynthia D. Waddell, JD

Executive Director and

Law, Policy and Technology Consultant

International Center for Disability Resources

   on the Internet (ICDRI)

Phone:  (408) 691-6921

 

ICDRI is based in

Raleigh, North Carolina USA

http://www.icdri.org/CynthiaW/cynthia_d.htm
<http://www.icdri.org/CynthiaW/cynthia_waddell.htm> 

 

See My New Book!

Web Accessibility:  Web Standards and

Regulatory Compliance by Apress

at www.icdri.org/WSR_Book.htm

See also Constructing Accessible Web Sites

www.icdri.org/constructing_accessible_web_site.htm

 

Is your Web Site Accessible?

Find out now with Cynthia Says! www.cynthiasays.com

Endorsed by the American Council of the Blind,

the CynthiaSaysTM portal is a joint Education

and Outreach project of ICDRI, The Internet

Society Disability and Special Needs Chapter, 

and HiSoftware.

  _____  

From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Phill Jenkins
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 5:55 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Leveraging Mashups For Accessibility:

 


What is so short sighted about "If it works with a screenreader it's
accessible"?  Accessibility is, and has always been to me, so much about all
the stakeholders doing their part, and all you have described is enablement
for accessibility and labeled it "Universal Accessibility".  Let me explain,
that; as you stated in the last paragraph: "all it needs is a relatively
modern Web browser like Firefox that implements W3C
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-aria-roadmap-20071019/%20GMT%3B%20Path%3D/%20S
et-Cookie:%20TPExits%3Dnull|null|null|10|null|null|%3B%20Expires%3DWed,%2001
-Oct-2008%2022:22:31%20GMT%3B%20Path%3D/%20Connection:%20close%20Content-Typ
e:%20text/html%3B%20charset%3DISO-8859-1>  ARIA and adaptive technology that
has been updated to work with the event notifications raised by conformant
AJAX applications". 

So, what you haven't said is that IE isn't yet a relatively modern browser
like Firefox because it doesn't yet support W3C ARIA.  I agree that
Microsoft IE should support ARIA, but my point is that it doesn't yet.  So,
to all those employees in real world jobs (not high tech ones like you at
Google and me at IBM where we can have multiple copies of browsers
installed, and maybe even mutiple laptops with Linux, Windows, and
whatever), that have to wait till IE supports ARIA, what are they suppose to
do?  What I tell their companies is that: "If they let them already install
nonstandard adaptive technology, then why not let them install non-standard
browsers and such too if it removes the barriers to accessibility?  The
answer is, "Well, who's going to test it all to make sure it works and is
supported?" Ah, good point. 

You also didn't say that both JAWS and WindowEyes have been updated to
support ARIA as implemented in Firefox, and that the Linux Screen Reader
also supports ARIA as well.  So at least those users who have the permission
to install and run Firefox or Linux will be able to benefit from the
enablement you describe. With some education, outreach support, and
affordability (funding) for the end users themselves, like making sure the
user knows how to use mash-ups and configure things correctly, and can
afford to make the upgrades - we have most of the right side of the stake
holders covered. 

Lets discuss the left side of the stake holders (the part before the content
is conformant and published on a server).  We have the ARIA spec, check, we
have the AxsJAX for injecting accessibility, check, and you have described
mashing up (bringing together): "the XKCD sketches with the associated
transcript to create a mashed-up view where the user gets to listen to the
transcript while at the XKCD site", check.  But who (developers, service
provider, content provider) is going to do all this?  Where are the tools
and motivations for them? 

Today in the Web 1.0 world we have spec for things like alt="text" and XML
for adding timed text to audio and video.  And we even have a good start at
authoring tools and checking and repair tools to help the authors and
developers to make the content conform to some basic standards.  But where
are things on Web 2.0?  Even when the suport is implemented in IE, and even
when the user has an "updated adaptive technology", somebody has to create
the "conformant AJAX" application and someone has to create the "associated
transcript", and they have to do it under budget and within the project
deadline.   

So, back to ""If it works with a screenreader",  maybe is simplistisct, but
I see it as a test of a more wholestic view because it considers the whole
food chain, all of the stake holders, the complete supply and delivery
cycle, and [insert your latest buzz word here], because at the end of the
day if it doesn't work - its not accessible to the end user! 

I do like the title of the post - leveraging Mashups for Accessibility, just
didn't want any readers to thinks there is a silver bullet here.  Reminds me
of the old days when GUIs were first coming out and there was talk about how
they were going to make things more universally accessible, or when the Web
was introduced, or even proprietary technologies like PDF - my point being
that until all the stake holders get lined up and do their part, enablement
and leveraging is necessary and great, but not sufficient.  If it doesn't
work in the adaptive technology, its not accessible to the end user. 

Regards,
Phill Jenkins
IBM Research - Human Ability & Accessibility Center






"T.V Raman" <raman@google.com> 
Sent by: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org 

12/20/2007 04:31 PM 


To

w3c-wai-ig@w3.org 


cc

 


Subject

Leveraging Mashups For Accessibility:

 


 

 






See 
http://xml-applications.blogspot.com/2007/12/leveraging-2w-for-accessibility
.html

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

Title:  Research Scientist      
Email:  raman@google.com
WWW:    http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/
Google: tv+raman 
GTalk:  raman@google.com, tv.raman.tv@gmail.com
PGP:    http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/raman-almaden.asc