IT Accessibility Review
Volume 1, Number 10
IT Accessibility Legal Briefs
Suit: Target.com Inaccessible to the Blind:
By Rick Fuentes
(WCCO) The National Federation of the Blind is suing Target, saying Target´s Web site is inaccessible to the blind.
Steve Jacobsen, who has been blind since birth, can download music from Wal-Mart, but he can´t get furniture from Target´s website.
Jacobsen said Target.com works in places, but some links make the computer speak gibberish.
"I have been in case where I have been on the checkout and I couldn´t differentiate between the buy button and the cancel button," Jacobsen said.
Most people know if you leave your cursor on the screen for a while, a window pops up telling you where you are. The blind use programs called screen readers, which vocalize whatever the window says.
In order for blind people´s programs to read the links, however, the programmer must put that link on the site.
The National Federation of the Blind said Target refused to add the links.
Joyce Scanlan of the National Federation of the Blind said, "We´re being excluded. How would you feel if you were not allowed to go into a particular store or use a particular Web site?"
"If I can access Web information easily, I´m going to be more employable. I´m going to be able to contribute back to society. Earn my own way. It all hooks together," Jacobsen said.
The National Federation of the Blind said in November it was scheduled to have a meeting at Target headquarters, but the meeting was cancelled by Target at the last minute.
The lawsuit should decide if Target.com will have to change its Web site or not.
The group said the suit was filed in California because civil rights laws are much tougher there.
Target said it has not yet been served with the lawsuit, but the company strives to make goods and services available to all of its guests, including those with disabilities.
(C MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Source:
http://wcco.com/
09 February 2006
