Are Websites Included In The Americans With Disabilities Act?
from the wheelchair-ramps-to-the-information-superhighway dept
Last week there were a few news stories here and there about a blind man suing two airlines because they had web-only fares that he couldn't access, since their sites were not designed to be accessible to the blind. Wired takes a deeper look at this lawsuit and the implications for the rest of the web. If the courts find for the man, then it probably means that all commercial websites would be required to be accessible to the visually impaired. What I'm wondering is what does that entail? There currently are various software programs that will read websites outloud, and even braille website readers. What else needs to be done to make these sites "accessible"?
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whoo hoo!
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Flash makes a great banner technology, otherwise it should be shot.
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Accessibility
In regards to Mike’s question about what else needs to be done, the biggest help I’ve found is invisible links at the top (they are the first to be ‘tabbed’ to) of the page that jump to different anchors on that page. If you go to a site and need the phone number, you might glance down at the footer for the information, not read the entire menu, then read the body of the site, then read the footer. This is what a screen reader does, and it’s terribly annoying. Try it out. Using the Techdirt homepage as an example, I would have links to: #menu, #search, #stories, #features, #poll, #olderstuff, #newsfeed, #quicklinks, #footer (with very descriptive alt tags). Also, I typically do a screen reader info page that helps to explain how the site functions and is structured. I could go on, but probably should get back to work...
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