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Domino’s asks SCOTUS to shut down a lawsuit requiring its website be accessible
- nulbyte 7y ago> In the document, Domino’s lays out its argument, claiming the cost of accessibility requirements may run into the millions, and the rules around what is accessible and what is not have yet to be decided. This is a dense argument. There are well-established web content accessibility guidelines, aptly named Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Android has accessibility features built-in, and I'd guess iOS does too, despite having never used it myself. Nothing about this is particularly costly. WCAG has been around for over a decade...so what is Domino's angle, really? For a company that seems to embrace tech, this makes no sense.
- scottshea 7y agoI have no personal knowledge of this case but having helped companies with their Accessibility deficits in the past I have seen resistance from Marketing who believes that their color scheme is the sole reason anyone uses the site-- despite not having strong enough contrast in colors. And some executives just do not like being told they have to do something
- devoply 7y agoHell I will do it for a million in the next 6 months.
- romwell 7y ago>so what is Domino's angle, really? Regulations require us to do something. We don't feel like doing something. Waaaaaa. (i.e., the usual; cf. Boeing and FAA, etc)
- mikeash 7y agoFor perspective, in the previous quarter Domino's reported revenues of over $800 million and profit of over $90 million. But I guess spending a couple of days' worth of profit on complying with the law is just too much to ask.
- SilasX 7y agoHaving struggled with it, here's the most charitable reason I can give: First, remember that the blind have always been able to order pizza by just calling in with a phone. Domino's is serving the blind in that sense. The case here is about them being unwilling to provide an online-only discount to the blind. So why are they paying so much to defend, specifically, a blind-inaccessible, online-only discount? They offer an online discount, I think, because they get so much more valuable data from it. Like most websites, sadly, their site loads you down with a torrent of trackers. What does that have to do with being accessible? Well, if the blind can easily navigate to the important parts of a site, so can their screen-reader ... and so can any program. Then, anyone, not just the blind, can bypass all the crap on their site when ordering, and even shut out the trackers. Where's the flaw in my logic? tl;dr: Anything that helps the blind navigate their site also helps you bypass tracking, and makes an online-only discount unprofitable.
- vkou 7y ago> Where's the flaw in my logic? They make a lot more money from selling pizza than from tracking you, and if someone who is blocking trackers can't reasonably order pizza, Dominos would be shooting themselves in the foot. If their website doesn't work for <my browser configuration>, I'm not going to pick up a fucking phone. I'll just order from any other pizza place in my vicinity. The likely reality is, they are lazy, and don't want to spend dev effort to be compliant.
- fuzz4lyfe 7y agoThe devs are lazy but the lawyers are hard working enough to bring a case to the supreme court? Surely the amount of effort to have a case there is less than the effort required to make the site meet some accessibility guidelines.
- vkou 7y agoMost companies wouldn't be stupid, or penny-wise, pound-foolish enough to litigate this sort of thing, but it's not unreasonable to think that there's always the exception that proves the rule.
- mr_toad 7y ago> WCAG has been around for over a decade Following the WCAG won’t stop you getting sued (or more likely, getting a letter threatening a lawsuit unless you pay a ‘settlement’).
- joedevon 7y agoYou may get a drive by lawsuit from a lawyer looking for a quick buck, but you will likely defend it quite well.
- Bendingo 7y agoI develop mobile apps for a large corp, who have decided to deliver maximum accessibility. And I can tell you that accessibility is hard to get right. I estimate implementing good accessibility and fixing accessibility bugs in Android takes around 20-25 % of our total effort.
- squirrelicus 7y agoYou ever think how this might apply to, ianno, startups? Seems like all humans should be on Domino's side, at least all techies. Edit: before the cacophany decends to tell me how easy accessibility is, let me preemptively highlight that opportunity cost is the fundamental unit of cost to a startup. And this is a ycombinator site. So everyone should already know this.
- mikeash 7y agoAccessibility helps everyone. All humans should be on the side opposite Domino's here.
- praneshp 7y agoTrying to be non-snarky here: How does it help someone who doesn't need any of today's typical accessibility features?
- ken 7y agoHow do you think search engines work? Making pages that a program can easily read is pretty fundamental to how everyone uses the web.
- mikeash 7y agoAccessible design tends to be easier to read in general, helping everyone. Non-blind people may like to use a screen reader so they can do stuff by ear. I suspect a lot of HN readers like to navigate web sites by keyboard, something a lot of sites fail at and something accessibility design ensures. Lots of people who would never describe themselves as "disabled" require corrective lenses and accessibility can help them when their glasses are in the next room. And everyone will reach that point eventually, unless they die young. So my post was not 100% correct. There are some people who do not benefit from accessibility at all: those who are in excellent health and will die a sudden death before they age too much. More discussion about how both digital and physical accessibility helps everyone: https://blog.ai-media.tv/blog/why-designing-for-accessibility-helps-everyone https://blog.ai-media.tv/blog/why-designing-for-accessibilit... https://medium.com/@mosaicofminds/the-curb-cut-effect-how-making-public-spaces-accessible-to-people-with-disabilities-helps-everyone-d69f24c58785 https://medium.com/@mosaicofminds/the-curb-cut-effect-how-ma... https://www.npr.org/2015/07/24/423230927/-a-gift-to-the-non-disabled-at-25-the-ada-improves-access-for-all https://www.npr.org/2015/07/24/423230927/-a-gift-to-the-non-...
- oh_sigh 7y agoI can imagine the Dominos screenreader experience would be quite trying for a low vision person because it would constantly, seemingly randomly ask "DO YOU WANT TO ADD MORE CHEESE?", or "WOULD YOU LIKE A CHEESY BREAD?"
- mikeash 7y agoI mean, it's super annoying for sighted people already, so it would just be on par with that experience.
- jrootabega 7y agoIt would probably be the responsibility of the site to present all content in a semantically understandable context (which html isn't too shabby at)
- SilasX 7y agoRecently discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20491463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20491463
- SEOinSeattle 7y agoThis would be a good project for the United States Digital Service. Define what reasonably accessible means and provide lists and freely available code that government agencies and and businesses can use to create accessible websites.
- SEOinSeattle 7y agohttps://www.section508.gov/create/web-content https://www.section508.gov/create/web-content
- inlined 7y agoWasn’t it Domino’s who claimed to be a “tech company which happened to sell pizza”? If so, that quote says they should know better IMO
- Uhhrrr 7y agoThis should be a free speech issue. Domino's already lets you order by phone, and really it's possible to live a full life without their pizza. I haven't ordered from them in decades. There's no reason to compel them to make their platform accessible.
- qtplatypus 7y agoThere is no free speech issue. These rules don't dictate meaningful content of their speech but just that the meaningful content is accessible by people with disabilities.
- Uhhrrr 7y agoBut that is a ridiculous standard to apply to nonessential broadcasted information.
- Invictus0 7y ago> But these suits put their targets in an impossible situation. Unless this Court steps in now, defendants must retool their websites to comply with Title III without any guidance on what accessibility in the online environment means for individuals with the variety of disabilities covered by the ADA I'm with Dominos. No reasonable person would expect a website to support people with disabilities; the web is still the totally unregulated wild west it was 20 years ago. Just because it would be nice to have a web that supports people with disabilities doesn't mean you can have the Supreme Court will the requisite regulation into existence, nor does the existence of some informal accessibility standards mean that they should be enforceable by law. It is the job of Congress to update the ADA into the 21st century, and until they do that, the court should not force businesses to comply with the yet-to-be-written regulations.
- qtplatypus 7y agoThe ADA says that businesses have to be accessible. It isn't written with regards to any technology etc. So the Supreme Court can interpret the law as meaning that it covers the internet. Just like if I invent a novel poison and use it to kill someone it doesn't stop being murder because no one knew about that poison when the law against murder was being written. There have been web accessibility guidelines since 1995 and WCAG 2.0 aka ISO/IEC 40500:2012 has been around since 2012. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation act incorporates those guidelines so if you are following those rules you should be safe.
- sergiotapia 7y agoThis is crazy, you can already order a pizza by phone. Where does it end really.
- colejohnson66 7y agoBut can you get the online exclusive deals over the phone?
- WheelsAtLarge 7y agoThe fact that this case has gone to the supreme court shows how difficult it is for companies to understand that excluding a whole segment of the population should not be treated as a business advantage. I get it. It's expensive but there should be a compromise. I've dealt with having to make a site accessible. There are a lot of mods that you need to make that are mostly not noticed by most users but are a bear to keep up to date with a constantly changing website and will add many hours of work to the website's upkeep. Also if you stick by the strict guidelines there are web technologies that can't be used - especially the newest tech. Long term it's easier to maintain 2 sites with different UIs but again that takes many hours of extra manpower. I'm one that believes accessibility is a must but I also realize that most companies aren't willing to spend the extra money. What's the fix? A compromise like having a very simple web site or it might be having an alternative system where accessibility means having someone help you with the site via phone. But fighting all the way to the supreem courts so you don't have to do any thing is not the answer.
- ToFab123 7y agoI remember doing a redesign of a major European government website where accessible was a priority. We worked together with Jaws (leading developer of Screen Readers. No affiliate) to find a way to determine if the user was using a screen reader. They made a few adjustments to their app in order for us to do that and we proceed with the plans of making a text only version of website when a screen reader was detected. This was shot down by the government lawyers as this was against the "equal access rule". Redirecting users to a different version of the website was determined to be the equivalent as building a separate entrance to a government building optimized for wheal chairs users which is against the law. The law clearly states that all citizen must have same access to government facilities and that was determined to mean "the same entrance" and "same facilities within the building". So an optimized, text only, edition of the website for screen readers was ruled out and screen reader users was left with a sub-optimal experience ... but hey they get to use the same URL as everyone else so there is nothing for them to complain about. (This is 10 years ago. Dont know if things has changed since. I hope it have)
- mycall 7y agoIf you own an iPhone/iPad, much has changed. These devices include the best features for accessibility.
- ToFab123 7y agoIt is possible to make a website accessible using existing tools and guidelines but you can make a much better experience if you build a dedicated edition of your website to use by screen readers. This would be the equivalent of publishing 2 versions of your iPhone app. One highly optimized for blind people and another version for everyone else. Although the iPhone has great accessibility an separate optimized version of your app would provide an even better user experience but that we were not allowed to do. The idea for the text only edition was an idea that was formed by a group of blind people and was the solution they said was the optimal solution for them
- joedevon 7y ago
- termage 7y agoDomino’s position makes more sense if you take them at their word: the problem isn’t technical, it’s that there’s no legal (rather than industry) standard for what makes a website accessible. Corporations don’t like legal uncertainty, and what I suspect Domino’s is after is for the Court or Congress to articulate a standard (or, more likely, point to an existing standard, giving it the force of law) so that all web sites have common and stable accessibilty guidelines.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoMaybe, but then Domino's marketing people would surely have been all over making that clearly indicated "we're only fighting this to bring clarity because accessibility is so important to us" or somesuch.