Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible • Hacker News Board

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

#451

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:13 PM UTC

pakitan wrote: post #354

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our site is of zero interest to them. How do you know? It's not like blind people are all the same. They're just people with the same wide range of interests as everyone else.

Would a blind person be interested in a painting or car insurance? Another reason I'm sure about it is if there was genuine interest, there would be calls from blind people - "Hey, I'm interested in your products but I'm blind, can you help me with figuring out some things on your site?" or "Hey I'm blind and I have problem accessing certain features on your site, can you please fix those issues?". We haven't got one…

I believe the idea is that you (or I, or the government) doesn't get to decide which topics should or should not be interesting for different groups.

As but one example: there are blind people skiing now, with echolocation and other methods. I bet ski lift operators would have argued that they have nothing to offer to blind people, making that particular expansion of freedom more difficult.

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

#452

Post by CathedralBorrow » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:19 PM UTC

enlyth wrote: post #402

foldr wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not going to say what we sell because it's not important It seems to me that what you sell is the central issue here, as you're claiming that blind people wouldn't be interested in it. I'm not really willing to take your word for it, given the other examples you've used. In the case of car insurance, it's obvious that people don't only buy insurance for cars that they drive. Consider e.g. an employee of a compa…

You're ignoring most of what OP is saying, he's completely right in saying he should have no obligation to dedicate huge resources to a potential 0.00001% of his customers which may or may not even exist, when the only benefit will be not getting hit by frivolous lawsuits.

> "he's completely right in saying he should have no obligation"

Is he right because you agree with him? I don't think he's right. The law also doesn't think he's right.

There's also quite a few assumptions that you seem to have made in not very good faith, because how could you know how much effort it would take to fix accessibility for a website that you don't even know what sells? You've also assumed some exaggerated fraction of a percent, and assumed that a lawsuit that you don't know anything about was frivolous.

Based on what information did you assume all those things?

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

#453

Post by Forge36 » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

archie2 wrote: post #447

I don't get it. Why can't he just order from someone else that has an accessible website? I choose not to use lousy webapps for all sorts of reasons.

Imagine the website is only partially accessible.

You jump though the hoops to make your order, make an account, choose your pizza, and enter your credit card info.

You click submit. Nothing happens. Did the order go through? Do you call to find out? Wait and hope? Order from someone else? In the future you'll have an answer (or 4 different deliveries because you went somewhere else 3 separate times until you found an accessible website).

What if you didn't have another option? Should we prevent the blind from eating pizza?

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

#454

Post by Frondo » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

enlyth wrote: post #411

skywhopper wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your language here is really insulting. Take a step back and consider maybe you don't know everything there is to know about how visually impaired individuals live their lives. They aren't all (or even mostly) fully blind! They have families which usually include fully sighted individuals! Meanwhile they are also capable human beings who have all the same needs and concerns about day-to-day life as anyone else.

Are you surprised? He's got a product which he believes has no value to blind people and a record of exactly zero people calling to complain, but he's getting shit on by the a11y brigade anyway. I believe it should be his right to just simply say my product is not for blind people, and dedicate no resources to servicing this hypothetical user base. It's very easy to tell others to do something a certain way with a co…

It is entirely possible a blind person would buy a painting or a piece of artistic jewelry as a gift for a friend or family member; they may even buy one, sight unseen, to decorate their apartment or body for the enjoyment of their sighted friends.

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

#455

Post by couchand » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

enlyth wrote: post #411

skywhopper wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your language here is really insulting. Take a step back and consider maybe you don't know everything there is to know about how visually impaired individuals live their lives. They aren't all (or even mostly) fully blind! They have families which usually include fully sighted individuals! Meanwhile they are also capable human beings who have all the same needs and concerns about day-to-day life as anyone else.

Are you surprised? He's got a product which he believes has no value to blind people and a record of exactly zero people calling to complain, but he's getting shit on by the a11y brigade anyway. I believe it should be his right to just simply say my product is not for blind people, and dedicate no resources to servicing this hypothetical user base. It's very easy to tell others to do something a certain way with a co…

> I believe it should be his right to just simply say my product is not for blind people, and dedicate no resources to servicing this hypothetical user base.

Fortunately, in America we don't believe discrimination is acceptable, and we've codified that principle in the law.

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

#456

Post by couchand » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

rimliu wrote: post #309

notyourwork wrote: post #71

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.

And that's where you enter the woods. There is no "the screenreader". There are different screen readers, and each my interpret your site differently.

The same is true of mainstream browsers. Would you not bother testing in even a single browser just because there are too many options?

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

#457

Post by DoreenMichele » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

pakitan wrote: post #273

couchand wrote: post #77

Despite the somewhat misleading headline, the Supreme Court didn't really say anything new here. They declined to hear Domino's appeal of the Ninth Circuit's (unanimous and clearly correctly decided) reversal of the District Court's absurd dismissal. Domino's tried to claim that their due process rights were being violated since there is no federally-mandated standard for accessibility. But the ADA is clear: business…

> It's really not hard to make your websites accessible at a basic level. Follow the standards. Do you follow the standards? If you show me a web site that you've developed I'll show you a site with multiple violations of WCAG 2.0. Hell, JAWS' own site is littered with WCAG violations! Yes, "accessibility at the basic level" is easy but WCAG 2.0 is not "accessibility at the basic level". It's a huge set of rules that…

It's really unfortunate that the HN crowd is siding with them, as if they are championing the rights of disabled people. It's all about money.

I'm sorry you got burned, but this is not the best way to make your point.

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

#458

Post by gabaix » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

pakitan wrote: post #419

skywhopper wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really curious why you think a blind person wouldn't be "interested" in car insurance. They may not be able to drive themselves, but that doesn't mean they can't be the person paying the bills in a family that owns cars and thus has to have car insurance. As for paintings... there was really zero information on the site other than pictures of paintings? Nothing about the artist, the size, or the price? You appare…

> It also sounds like you don't really believe that disabled folks deserve any consideration. No, that's not at all what I believe so let me clarify what my objections are. First, by its very nature "accessibility" is open to interpretation and allowing people to sue companies for non-accessible sites gives way to frivolous lawsuits. As far as I remember, there isn't even an attempt to define "accessibility" in US la…

I have met a restaurant owner who had exactly the same issue. A lawyer came into his restaurant alongside someone in a wheelchair. They noticed paper rolls were not at a correct height, threatened to sue, and let them settle for less. For the restaurant owner, it didn't seem that they genuinely cared about the accessibility problem, but rather making money off using ADA.

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

#459

Post by laken » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

marktangotango wrote: post #397

dansingerman wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great comment. Imagine the investment that would suddenly start in accessibility if Google publicly announced it was an important part of search engine rankings.

These scanners exist, and they can serve a dual purpose; scan the web for websites to sue. And yes this is happening. It's important to note that not every site on the web falls under ADA. The crucial part of this issue is that the business must have a physical “brick and mortar” location to fall under the ADA. Presumably purely online retail businesses are not affected.

You'd be surprised. In Florida, there have been cases which have set precedent as websites being similar to libraries, which would mean the ADA applies to purely digital places. The problem is that the ADA has never set explicit rules for website accessibility.

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

#460

Post by CathedralBorrow » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #451

pakitan wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would a blind person be interested in a painting or car insurance? Another reason I'm sure about it is if there was genuine interest, there would be calls from blind people - "Hey, I'm interested in your products but I'm blind, can you help me with figuring out some things on your site?" or "Hey I'm blind and I have problem accessing certain features on your site, can you please fix those issues?". We haven't got one…

I believe the idea is that you (or I, or the government) doesn't get to decide which topics should or should not be interesting for different groups. As but one example: there are blind people skiing now, with echolocation and other methods. I bet ski lift operators would have argued that they have nothing to offer to blind people, making that particular expansion of freedom more difficult.

Yeah, I can imagine how many things would be different if businesses had been able to decide what blind people like.

"It's a website, which you look at, so clearly blind people aren't interested."