4 ms·

You are missing the Scola ordered the company to comply with what Vu describes as the "de facto" standard - the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0

You are missing the Scola ordered the company to comply with what Vu describes as the "de facto" standard - the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA drafted by accessibility experts. I'm betting they will be able to find violations everywhere.

GabrielF00 9y ago
My experience is that WCAG compliance can actually be beneficial to the company. For instance, an employer of mine saw a very significant jump in sales (as measured by A/B testing) by increasing contrast of certain important elements on a page to meet WCAG standards. I'm not saying this is always the case - the percentage of customers using screen readers is very small - but in a lot of cases, thinking carefully about font, color, or contrast choices can help more than just the disabled. [Edit] To take another example, 10% of men are colorblind. If you're using color to convey information, you may be making your website very difficult to use for 5% of your customers. If you're operating at any kind of scale, the gains in making your website easier to use for 5% of your customers are going to outweigh the costs of making a change by a wide margin.
ubernostrum 9y ago
WCAG is not hard to comply with. If you're using HTML and CSS and JavaScript sensibly, you're probably 95% of the way there already (if not more).
- protomyth 9y ago
  That 5% is going to cost because they will find something and you are going to get sued just like physical business owners.
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    You seem to have a very malicious idea of how this works. WCAG is not a 10,000-page document of arcane impossible-to-understand requirements. And there's not a horde of bloodthirsty disabled people just itching for you to mess up on the fourth footnote of 90731(a)(1)(c)(3).12 so they can sue for a trillion dollars. Accessible web sites are not difficult. Odds are if you do web stuff, you have accidentally produced WCAG-compliant websites in the past without knowing you were doing it. So please stop pushing the narrative about how "they" are out to "find something" and sue you and implying that WCAG is too complex to comply with. It's not, and frankly it's offensive -- disabled people have, morally and legally, exactly the same right to be able to use the internet you do, and WCAG is a guide to how you can make that happen.
    - problems 9y ago
      > It's not, and frankly it's offensive -- disabled people have, morally and legally, exactly the same right to be able to use the internet you do, and WCAG is a guide to how you can make that happen. I have no right to demand people bend the web to my whim, but I have ever right to use software to render it on my own computer just how I want it. It really seems like better screen reader software and removing of this archaic law is a better solution here. Also the incredibly nitpicky stuff is happening, even in the physical world - http://m.startribune.com/flurry-of-disability-lawsuits-leaves-minnesota-proprietors-baffled/285777711/ http://m.startribune.com/flurry-of-disability-lawsuits-leave...
      - wbl 9y ago
        Not all users who need to be considered are going to have screen readers. Red-green colorblindness is very common. Epilepsy has its own issues with animations.
      - ubernostrum 9y ago
        The "archaic" Americans with Disabilities Act is 27 years old. And your concern (if we can use that term to describe a grudge masquerading as a concern, going by your language about "demands" to "bend" things to a "whim") was explicitly addressed in amendments to the act in 2008. The ADA is the law of the land: if you're a business open to the public, you have to be open to all of the public, not just the members of the public who you think are most convenient to serve. And history has shown that the horrible, terrible, awful no-good frivolous demands of the ADA have positive effects for everybody. Read up on things like how people with children in strollers have a much easier time getting around cities now because street-corner curbs have to have areas accessible to people in wheelchairs.
        protomyth 9y ago
        The ADA is overall a good law, and this isn't about access because that is important. It is about the hit and run lawsuits that are a current problem. Stop trying to deamonize people who have legitimate concerns because of recent events. http://m.startribune.com/flurry-of-disability-lawsuits-leaves-minnesota-proprietors-baffled/285777711/ http://m.startribune.com/flurry-of-disability-lawsuits-leave...
  - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
    That 5% is never going to be grounds for a successful lawsuit. To successfully sue someone you have to prove that you were damaged. A 5% deviation from WCAG is not going to prevent someone from using your site, so they will not be able to prove that they were damaged. If it does prevent them from using some piece of functionality, you can just fix that one piece of functionality.

GabrielF00 9y ago

My experience is that WCAG compliance can actually be beneficial to the company. For instance, an employer of mine saw a very significant jump in sales (as measured by A/B testing) by increasing contrast of certain important elements on a page to meet WCAG standards. I'm not saying this is always the case - the percentage of customers using screen readers is very small - but in a lot of cases, thinking carefully about font, color, or contrast choices can help more than just the disabled. [Edit] To take another example, 10% of men are colorblind. If you're using color to convey information, you may be making your website very difficult to use for 5% of your customers. If you're operating at any kind of scale, the gains in making your website easier to use for 5% of your customers are going to outweigh the costs of making a change by a wide margin.

ubernostrum 9y ago

WCAG is not hard to comply with. If you're using HTML and CSS and JavaScript sensibly, you're probably 95% of the way there already (if not more).

protomyth 9y ago
That 5% is going to cost because they will find something and you are going to get sued just like physical business owners.
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  You seem to have a very malicious idea of how this works. WCAG is not a 10,000-page document of arcane impossible-to-understand requirements. And there's not a horde of bloodthirsty disabled people just itching for you to mess up on the fourth footnote of 90731(a)(1)(c)(3).12 so they can sue for a trillion dollars. Accessible web sites are not difficult. Odds are if you do web stuff, you have accidentally produced WCAG-compliant websites in the past without knowing you were doing it. So please stop pushing the narrative about how "they" are out to "find something" and sue you and implying that WCAG is too complex to comply with. It's not, and frankly it's offensive -- disabled people have, morally and legally, exactly the same right to be able to use the internet you do, and WCAG is a guide to how you can make that happen.
  - problems 9y ago
    > It's not, and frankly it's offensive -- disabled people have, morally and legally, exactly the same right to be able to use the internet you do, and WCAG is a guide to how you can make that happen. I have no right to demand people bend the web to my whim, but I have ever right to use software to render it on my own computer just how I want it. It really seems like better screen reader software and removing of this archaic law is a better solution here. Also the incredibly nitpicky stuff is happening, even in the physical world - http://m.startribune.com/flurry-of-disability-lawsuits-leaves-minnesota-proprietors-baffled/285777711/ http://m.startribune.com/flurry-of-disability-lawsuits-leave...
    - wbl 9y ago
      Not all users who need to be considered are going to have screen readers. Red-green colorblindness is very common. Epilepsy has its own issues with animations.
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      The "archaic" Americans with Disabilities Act is 27 years old. And your concern (if we can use that term to describe a grudge masquerading as a concern, going by your language about "demands" to "bend" things to a "whim") was explicitly addressed in amendments to the act in 2008. The ADA is the law of the land: if you're a business open to the public, you have to be open to all of the public, not just the members of the public who you think are most convenient to serve. And history has shown that the horrible, terrible, awful no-good frivolous demands of the ADA have positive effects for everybody. Read up on things like how people with children in strollers have a much easier time getting around cities now because street-corner curbs have to have areas accessible to people in wheelchairs.
      - protomyth 9y ago
        The ADA is overall a good law, and this isn't about access because that is important. It is about the hit and run lawsuits that are a current problem. Stop trying to deamonize people who have legitimate concerns because of recent events. http://m.startribune.com/flurry-of-disability-lawsuits-leaves-minnesota-proprietors-baffled/285777711/ http://m.startribune.com/flurry-of-disability-lawsuits-leave...
- TheCoelacanth 9y ago
  That 5% is never going to be grounds for a successful lawsuit. To successfully sue someone you have to prove that you were damaged. A 5% deviation from WCAG is not going to prevent someone from using your site, so they will not be able to prove that they were damaged. If it does prevent them from using some piece of functionality, you can just fix that one piece of functionality.