3 ms·

That's pretty far from the mark, but being made to provide multiple versions of content to accommodate all ranges of accessibility for anything, not just vital

That's pretty far from the mark, but being made to provide multiple versions of content to accommodate all ranges of accessibility for anything, not just vital or government services, published on the web could be a pretty difficult thing. Content without captions spurred a lawsuit by the National Association of the Deaf against Netflix a few years ago. What if your personal website hosted some dynamic content where an uncaptioned sound bite appeared, and you ended up being faced with legal action? What if the scope were broadened so that all websites required content compatibility modes for color blindness or spectrum sensitivity? Would that responsibility be shared by the browser makers as well? Would Google pull ads from businesses whose websites were not in compliance? And in the Netflix case, the judge found that it would be “irrational to conclude [that] places of public accommodation are limited to actual physical structures.”[1] That's quite an interesting interpretation. [1] http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/07/closed_captioning_lawsuit_netflix_faces_legal_charges_for_not_complying_with_ada_requirements_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/07/closed...

extra88 10y ago
The foundational law has been around for over 25 years. It doesn't require anything of your personal website anymore than it would require your personal home to have wheelchair ramps. > What if the scope were broadened so that all websites required content compatibility modes for color blindness or spectrum sensitivity? The law already requires reasonable measures to provide access to people with disabilities. If a business website's colors prevents a customer from using the site, they could already make it a legal matter. But that doesn't happen often, it's much easier for everyone for a customer to contact the business, explain the problem, and for the business to make a change that corrects the problem (more likely, some number of customers explain and eventually something is done). But standards and expectations do change over time, what's considered reasonable partially depends on technical possibilities, their general availability, and cost. It's reasonable to expect web sites to work with screen readers because they're readily available on almost all the computers people use; if screen readers didn't exist, it would not be reasonable to expect web sites to provide a purely aural interface for the vision impaired. > the judge found that it would be “irrational to conclude [that] places of public accommodation are limited to actual physical structures.”[1] That's quite an interesting interpretation. It's an interpretation that makes sense. The purpose of the law is to ensure people with disabilities have access to goods and services, it matters not whether such access involves concrete, paper, or ones and zeros.
- matt4077 10y ago
  > It doesn't require anything of your personal website anymore than it would require your personal home to have wheelchair ramps. The only slippery slope that wheelchair users approve of :)
onion2k 10y ago
What if your personal website hosted some dynamic content where an uncaptioned sound bite appeared, and you ended up being faced with legal action? Then I'd have to take the content off my website or use a service that automatically captioned it. To suggest anything else is to say that my website is more important than the accessibility of the internet to disabled users, which is nearly nonsense. A personal website is utterly trivial in comparison. Businesses will very often do the minimum possible work to make money, which leaves anyone who can't access content due to their disability having to pay more than people without disabilities or it leaves them completely shut out of the service just because the business doesn't want to pay to make their service accessible. That's clearly and obviously not fair, and not something I want to happen in the society I live in, if only because I realise that I might have an accident one day that leaves me disabled and be in the position that disabled people are in now.

extra88 10y ago

The foundational law has been around for over 25 years. It doesn't require anything of your personal website anymore than it would require your personal home to have wheelchair ramps. > What if the scope were broadened so that all websites required content compatibility modes for color blindness or spectrum sensitivity? The law already requires reasonable measures to provide access to people with disabilities. If a business website's colors prevents a customer from using the site, they could already make it a legal matter. But that doesn't happen often, it's much easier for everyone for a customer to contact the business, explain the problem, and for the business to make a change that corrects the problem (more likely, some number of customers explain and eventually something is done). But standards and expectations do change over time, what's considered reasonable partially depends on technical possibilities, their general availability, and cost. It's reasonable to expect web sites to work with screen readers because they're readily available on almost all the computers people use; if screen readers didn't exist, it would not be reasonable to expect web sites to provide a purely aural interface for the vision impaired. > the judge found that it would be “irrational to conclude [that] places of public accommodation are limited to actual physical structures.”[1] That's quite an interesting interpretation. It's an interpretation that makes sense. The purpose of the law is to ensure people with disabilities have access to goods and services, it matters not whether such access involves concrete, paper, or ones and zeros.

matt4077 10y ago
> It doesn't require anything of your personal website anymore than it would require your personal home to have wheelchair ramps. The only slippery slope that wheelchair users approve of :)

onion2k 10y ago

What if your personal website hosted some dynamic content where an uncaptioned sound bite appeared, and you ended up being faced with legal action? Then I'd have to take the content off my website or use a service that automatically captioned it. To suggest anything else is to say that my website is more important than the accessibility of the internet to disabled users, which is nearly nonsense. A personal website is utterly trivial in comparison. Businesses will very often do the minimum possible work to make money, which leaves anyone who can't access content due to their disability having to pay more than people without disabilities or it leaves them completely shut out of the service just because the business doesn't want to pay to make their service accessible. That's clearly and obviously not fair, and not something I want to happen in the society I live in, if only because I realise that I might have an accident one day that leaves me disabled and be in the position that disabled people are in now.