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

latimes.com

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

#201

Post by DoreenMichele »

mrep wrote: post #183
mltony wrote: 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…

Ironically (I cannot seem to word this in my mind without sounding like an ass so please don't take offense), your comment is about 10 lines long on my 15 inch laptop making it somewhat difficult to read for us vision readers. A double new line every few sentences which causes a paragraph on hacker news makes it much easier.

I have such bad eyesight that I gave up my driver's license. I didn't find it that burdensome to read the comment in question.

You might want to get your eyes checked or read up on other disabilities that can impair reading ability even if your eyesight is fine. If you feel so impinged upon that it makes sense to you to ask a blind person to accommodate your needs and problems, you may have an unidentified handicap.

https://www.thevisiontherapycenter.com/discovering-vision-th...

http://www.visuallearningcenter.com/9-signs-your-child-may-h...

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

#202

Post by anonymousab »

anonytrary wrote: post #114
freeone3000 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an undue burden. Either don't break screen readers with javascript bullshit, or un-break them by having a sane tab order and present aria tags and image descriptions. Try it with keyboard navigation, listen to what it sounds like, and if it's functional , you pass. It's not that hard.

> Either don't break screen readers with javascript bullshit It's your site. You have the freedom to break your own property. This is apparently a contradiction. This addition seems to say that I can't break my own property if it means some people can't see it. How is this constitutional?

It's you're site that you can do with as you please right up until you're running a business and selling goods. Everything changes then, even without the ADA.

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

#203

Post by miki123211 »

mltony wrote: post #98
frittig wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your insight. One thing that I've wondered for a while is, what do you do about captchas? The whole point of them is to prevent access to the webpage unless a person sees the graphic. Can you sue Google under ada?

Google's recaptcha is actually somehow really good - you just click on the checkbox and somehow it magically understands that you're a human, even when using a screenreader. Other websites have audio captcha. In the worst case, you can install a captcha-solving browser extension - they are typically 90% accurate.

> Google's recaptcha is actually somehow really good - you just click on the checkbox and somehow it magically understands that you're a human,

Unless it doesn't. Yes, it gives you an audio captcha. No, it's not a good solution, as it's in english only, and a pretty good command of the language is required to solve it, especially now.

If you use TOR for some reason (nosy admin in my case). They always ask you to solve the challenge, but when you click audio, you get a spoken prompt saying "this computer is sending too many automated requests, so audio captchas have been blocked". I don't know who you'd need to sue, though. Either Google for not providing you the audio version, Cloudflare from preventing you access (and outsourcing the verification to Google), or the website itself for getting Cloudflare protection.

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

#204

Post by drewmol »

onion2k wrote: post #150
rgoldste wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, not trying to be a jerk. For something like ordering pizza (or even plane tickets), how much worse is calling to make the order as opposed to ordering online?

Blind people are the same as everyone else, but with reduced vision. So when you ask "Why don't blind people just call?" you actually need to be asking "Why don't I just call?" Blind people will have the same reasons.

But maybe the commentor does just call? I usually do for pizza because pizza websites suck even for people with typical vision. IME.

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

#205

Post by jameslk »

Is there really any requirement to make a website accessible if you could provide "full and equal enjoyment" via old fashioned phone support? I see this being vastly cheaper and less risky to provide for most non-"web app" websites (e.g. retail websites) for the smaller number of users who need it.

Edit: Found a source that seems to discuss it but it seems it hasn't been tested in court: https://www.adatitleiii.com/2017/10/telephone-access-might-b...

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

#206

Post by michaelmrose »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #164
mltony wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's recaptcha is actually somehow really good - you just click on the checkbox and somehow it magically understands that you're a human, even when using a screenreader. Other websites have audio captcha. In the worst case, you can install a captcha-solving browser extension - they are typically 90% accurate.

Newer recaptcha uses your google account as a heuristic if you’re logged in.

A disabled person should not need to opt into a google account to be able to browse the web

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

#207

Post by michaelmrose »

onion2k wrote: post #150
rgoldste wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, not trying to be a jerk. For something like ordering pizza (or even plane tickets), how much worse is calling to make the order as opposed to ordering online?

Blind people are the same as everyone else, but with reduced vision. So when you ask "Why don't blind people just call?" you actually need to be asking "Why don't I just call?" Blind people will have the same reasons.

If they didn't have online only deals wouldn't providing a person to talk to meet their burden of enabling that user?

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

#208

Post by mltony »

mrep wrote: post #183
mltony wrote: 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…

Ironically (I cannot seem to word this in my mind without sounding like an ass so please don't take offense), your comment is about 10 lines long on my 15 inch laptop making it somewhat difficult to read for us vision readers. A double new line every few sentences which causes a paragraph on hacker news makes it much easier.

I appreciate this feedback, I'll keep it in mind for my future comments.

And by the way, it is very common that people can't find words to give me feedback - happens pretty often. So I encourage people to give me feedback - no need to feel like ass :)

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

#209

Post by mrep »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #188
mrep wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically (I cannot seem to word this in my mind without sounding like an ass so please don't take offense), your comment is about 10 lines long on my 15 inch laptop making it somewhat difficult to read for us vision readers. A double new line every few sentences which causes a paragraph on hacker news makes it much easier.

If you need more line spacing, then you can tell your browser to do that. Either a few minutes with userContent or an extension like https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/line-height-adjust... And long lines are trivially helped by making the window less wide. So you've provided a good demonstration about how vastly easier things are to adjust for someone that can see.

The problem isn't line spacing whatsoever, it's tracing which one of the 10 lines you are reading from one side of a screen to another as your read it.

Did you make your comment 3 paragraphs ironically?

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

#210

Post by litoE »

I know the owner of a small brick and mortar store in California. She decided to create a web site to sell her products on line. She got a domain name and a hosting account and installed a canned platform (OpenCart) which allowed her to create her own web site and started to try and sell. Total sales on the web site over three years: about $3,500.

Then she received a letter from a lawyer in Florida,telling her that a) her web site is not ADA compliant; b) If she doesn't fix it, they'll file a law suit; and c) She needs to pay the lawyers $4,000 to "cover their time in handling this unfortunate situation".

With her sales, she can't justify spending an additional few thousand to pay a programmer to fix or redo her web site to be ADA compliant. Her only option is to just shut down the web site.

The only winners here were the lawyers.

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