Live data from Hacker News

Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

latimes.com

121–130 of 620 posts

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#121
post #112
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't an issue, its a feature. You live in a society so you plan around to serve that society. If you're not serving a large portion of your population then you're going to be forced to. This is no different than outlawing racial discrimination.

Completely incorrect. Denying someone service is completely different than them being unable to access your business because you can't afford to build out the accommodations. The constitution first and foremost guarantees freedom. Being forced to work at gunpoint is known as slavery.

So I take it you're opposed to the ADA in general?

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#122
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is actually using a screen reader and better yet having someone with accessibly needs provide feedback. Following guidelines is great but usability is only great when you actually see how someone interacts with your site. Again though, it’s not that hard.

On the other hand, there's probably two goals here. Making it work well, and avoiding a lawsuit. I imagine the latter involves a lot more work.

In my experience, it's a lot LESS work. Fair or not, the people reviewing accessibility standards are likely not disabled, and the mere functioning of a website is enough to pass WCAG 2.0. It doesn't have to work well - all of the bits that make a website nice are at level AAA or are advisory, and the government's claim here is that Level A Sufficient would be enough, it just has to work.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#123
post #121
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely incorrect. Denying someone service is completely different than them being unable to access your business because you can't afford to build out the accommodations. The constitution first and foremost guarantees freedom. Being forced to work at gunpoint is known as slavery.

So I take it you're opposed to the ADA in general?

Probably also opposed to safety regulations like having a sprinkler system if your business is in a building over a certain size. After all, building those are way more expensive than wheelchair ramps, and sometimes even more expensive than web devs who know how to make an accessible page.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#124
post #74

Blind programmer here. Just a glimpse of my life. Blind people have to live in an environment where X% of web sites and programs are not accessible, where X varies somewhere from 20% (for web sites) to 50% (for desktop applications). That's just my approximation of the state of accessibility these days. Now imagine that you live in the world where you don't know which printer or wi-fi router to buy, since maybe half…

I don't know if this would even be possible but, since you're a programmer and all, it would be cool if you built a small webapp/task-based game for people who aren't vision-impaired to try to navigate and experience the frustrations you experience every day. A gallery full of mystery photos, random buttons that needed to be clicked a weirdly specific way or don't work at all.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#125
post #86
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is being forced at gunpoint to build services into your business.

This isn't an issue, its a feature. You live in a society so you plan around to serve that society. If you're not serving a large portion of your population then you're going to be forced to. This is no different than outlawing racial discrimination.

Better tell that to the business owners and managers, not the developers.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#126

The issue here appears to be whether or not it's Domino's legal (and moral) obligation to make their website compatible with some specific piece of screen-reader software. To me, it seems like they probably should; the APIs are relatively clear, standardized, and easy to use, and there are quite a few people who can't use the website otherwise. I do wonder how far this argument goes, though. Say someone creates a new…

"Undue burden" is the test used. Essentially, how much work is it to create an accessible website? Websites are navigable by screen readers and tons of other accessibility software by default. Hacker News is completely usable in JAWS. It's the things Domino's layered on top that broke it, so it's Domino's's job to fix it. Having domino's create a new web browser for physical accessibility devices would be an undue bu…

That makes sense, thanks!

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#127
post #112
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't an issue, its a feature. You live in a society so you plan around to serve that society. If you're not serving a large portion of your population then you're going to be forced to. This is no different than outlawing racial discrimination.

Completely incorrect. Denying someone service is completely different than them being unable to access your business because you can't afford to build out the accommodations. The constitution first and foremost guarantees freedom. Being forced to work at gunpoint is known as slavery.

You’re not forced to work at gunpoint - you could’ve chosen not to build the website at all.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#128
Small personal story:

My father is an amazing salesman. He used to sell for Schwan's food in the 90's (those big yellow trucks that delivered frozen food to your door every 2 weeks).

He had a blind couple (husband and wife) that were on one of his routes, and they bought a little bit of food every time he came by. But they could never read the menu, because Schwan's only had printed brochures. One day, he had me and my siblings record on audio cassette the entire menu and their prices.

His sales from that couple shot through the roof! All of the sudden, there were all of these options for sale that they didn't even know about before, and now they wanted to try them. From that time forward, they were very faithful and consistent customers. And, of course, they were very appreciative of the gesture!

Every 6 months or so, when Schwan's updated their menu and/or pricing, we would re-record the menu, until Schwan's finally figured out an audio offering of their own.

A few years ago, my father ran into the couple when he happened to pass through their town (my father no longer sells for Schwan's, but now sells insurance and investments). The couple remembered and asked about each of us children by name, these decades later.

It's neat to see how just a little consideration (and a bit of extra work) can make a huge impact on someone else's life!

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#129
post #74

Blind programmer here. Just a glimpse of my life. Blind people have to live in an environment where X% of web sites and programs are not accessible, where X varies somewhere from 20% (for web sites) to 50% (for desktop applications). That's just my approximation of the state of accessibility these days. Now imagine that you live in the world where you don't know which printer or wi-fi router to buy, since maybe half…

I'd like to make sure I'm testing more of the website that I work on to make sure they're as accessible as possible. I want to do more than just run sites through validators. Is JAWS still a good accessibility program to test with? Are there other major accessibility programs I should be testing with?

I’m not the parent comment, but VoiceOver and NVDA are great text-to-speech screen readers.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#130
post #111
post #74

Blind programmer here. Just a glimpse of my life. Blind people have to live in an environment where X% of web sites and programs are not accessible, where X varies somewhere from 20% (for web sites) to 50% (for desktop applications). That's just my approximation of the state of accessibility these days. Now imagine that you live in the world where you don't know which printer or wi-fi router to buy, since maybe half…

Pardon my curiosity, did you type this on a keyboard by touch typing? If so how do you recognize and correct typos? Or did you use speech recognition? Same question about handling errors. I'd like to make sites I build more accessible, but I must admit I'm only familiar with the bare minimal guidelines I've read in a couple articles. I don't even know if they're correct or up to date. Nobody I've worked for has ever…

> Pardon my curiosity, did you type this on a keyboard by touch typing? If so how do you recognize and correct typos?

I'm merely a sighted user here, but I can personally attest that when you've mastered touch-typing, you can tell when you make a mistake and correct it without needing to look at the screen. It is a bit of an eerie feeling the first time you do it.

Full disclosure: I touch-typed this reply, and I made five mistakes when doing so, and fixed all of them without looking at the screen.

Post reply on HN