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

You can figure out the basics in about 20-60 minutes.

If you use a Mac, just enable VoiceOver: https://www.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/_1121.html

If you use Windows, I suggest NVDA - it's a free screen reader that's similar to the most-popular-but-expensive one (JAWS): https://www.nvaccess.org/download/

IMHO the best screen readers are on your phone / tablet. This might sound crazy (how can a touchscreen work when you can't see it?) but they're much better designed than their desktop equivalents. Mobile software tends to be simpler, resulting in a better experience:

iOS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDm7GiKra28

Android: https://support.google.com/accessibility/android/answer/6007...

If you work in web tech and take 1-2 hours to learn one of these you'll be able to dazzle others with it for the rest of your life.

I never even thought about this before, you gave me a little eye opener, thank you

The sum of all kinds of regulations like this one is great news for mega-corporations. Economies of scale mean that the costs are small for them, and proportonaly much bigger for smaller companies.

While I think it is a great goal that services should be accessible by people with special needs or restrictions, would it not be better if this could be achieved by incentives instead of hard regulation?

Perhaps as follows. 1) Create a registry for companies to self-declare that they are accessible for a given user segment by some given standard. (For essential utilities and government agencies, compliance can still be made mandatory) For registered entities, make this statement binding, and follow up breaches with fines that are sufficiently stiff that only companies that comply will register. This registry could contain information would contain information about standards that are already regulated, but could also be extended to include other needs (dietary standards, child friendliness, accessible to people with certain mental limitations, etc) 2) Make this information open to the public, and attach a rating service such as TripAdvisor where users can rate the degree of availability. This would make it easy for the beneficiaries to find services suitable for them. The data should also be made accessible through an API, so that special interest groups can mirror it on their own infrastructure. 3) Step 2 will provide an incentive in itself, but where it is not enough, introduce a tax incentive on top. Companies with the necessary accesiblity could be given a tax benefit in the order of 1-5%. This benefit should be on the profit, not the turnover, to avoid putting companies with limited profitablity out of business over this.

'Full and equal enjoyment' is quoting US code out of context. The law reads "No individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation."

There is a clear difference between 'discriminating' against someone because of their disability, and a person's inability to participate in something because of a disability.

Later in the law discrimination is defined, and it gives an exception that auxiliary aids must be provided, except when providing them would be an undue burden.

If I were Dominos (I'm not a lawyer, so I probably have this wrong), based on a reading of the law, I would argue that since Dominos offers pizza ordering through the telephone it is not depriving anyone their services if the website is not accessible. The service Dominos has to provide access to is delivery of pizzas, not the use of their website, which only exists specifically for the purpose of ordering pizzas. Could a library be sued because a specific book doesn't contain braille, when the same book is available in braille? What if Dominos had two phone numbers, one that offered teletype and one that was voice only? This judgement seems to imply that they could be sued unless both their phone numbers offered TDD, because they are depriving people of the use of the other phone number?

I'm all for making websites accessible, but I find it hard to believe someone who orders a pizza over the phone is being deprived of 'equal enjoyment' of the pizza.

Interestingly, the primary surprise in your comment is that you say that just about 20% of website are not accessible - I'd have expected that percentage to be far higher! Of course, there's a difference between "usable" and "easy to use", I guess.

As a note, for any sighted developers (like me) reading along: I'd highly recommend you to spend half an hour to learn and practice navigating software with a screen reader some time. It's a relatively easy step that gives you a lot of insight into low-hanging fruit in terms of accessibility improvements.

(Also, keep in mind that accessibility is not just vision impairments. Things like small click targets can make things a lot harder for people with motor issues, e.g. many elderly people.)