In further proof that web accessibility is becoming more and more of a hot button issue, The National Federation for the Blind is joining with a blind law school applicant in a lawsuit against the Law School Admissions Council. They cite that the council’s web site is inaccessible, including its LSAT preparation materials.

The NFB claims that the site is in violation of the California Disabled Persons Act and the Unruh Act. The Unruh Civil Rights Act “provides protection from discrimination by all business establishments in California, including housing and public accommodations, because of age, ancestry, color, disability, national origin, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation.”¹ Screen readers are unable to read various pieces of the site content, and keyboard-driven navigation is spotty.

It ought to be interesting to see how this pans out. I’m guessing a settlement in which the LSAC commits to making its web site and preparation materials more accessible to the disabled is in the future.

Source Materials:
Group, Blind Sue Law School Admissions Body For Inaccessible Web Site at AHN
Blind law student sues Law School Admissions Council over accessibility at The National Law Journal

¹ Unruh Civil Rights Act (California Civil Code Section 51)

Tags: California Disabled Persons Act, Law School Admission Test, Law School Admissions Council, lawsuit, LSAC, LSAT, National Federation for the Blind, National Law Journal, NFB, Unruh Act

In a settlement of a California-based lawsuit, online travel juggernaut Expedia and its Hotels.com will add content and search capabilities to their online reservations systems for would-be travelers with disabilities.

The lawsuit stemmed from two California women who claimed that Hotels.com discriminated against them by having a shoddy experience regarding wheelchair-accessible rooms. There was no clear-cut means of guaranteeing such a room.

Expedia has been working with Disability Rights Advocates to provide greater accessibility for disabled travel shoppers.

Source Materials:

• Expedia’s hotels.com settles lawsuit over wheelchair access (Deseret News)
• Expedia and Hotels.com agree to provide information for disabled travelers (Internet Retailer)

Tags: accessibility, Expedia, Hotels.com, lawsuit, wheelchair access

In a sea of endless blogs about endless topics, what am I blogging about and why is it important?

The answer to the first question is Web Accessibility.

So why is that important?

We as a society have gone to great lengths to be accepting of people of all cultures, backgrounds, ethnicity, social standing, or physical well-being. Any business worth its salt provides special parking and entranceways for the disabled, for example.

Do those same businesses make such considerations online?

The answer is a bit sketchier.

Accessibility seems to me to be a buzzword that people know in their hearts is important but wind up neglecting. Web site owners may have the noblest of intentions, but when faced with retrofitting a large site into rigid guidelines or jumping through a bunch of hoops when laying out a fresh site, things like money, resources and time tend stop it in its tracks.

A lot of people rightfully got scared about the much ballyhooed lawsuit slapped on Target by the National Federation of the Blind. Beyond a “Boy, now we -really- need to make our sites more accessible!” exasperation, how many of these concerned parties are actually doing what it takes to make their online identity easy for all people to reach, particularly those with disabilities?

In this blog, my goal is to share as much information as I can, as I learn it. I’m new to the web accessibility frontier — I’ll admit that up front. A few articles on the subject piqued my interest awhile back, and I’ve been scouring for more ever since.

Accessibility isn’t just about making your site as navigable for the blind as possible, or providing transcripts of multimedia for the deaf. At its core, following principles of web accessibility makes your site usable for the widest audience possible. A fully accessible site is clean, well-laid out, lighter, browser cross-compatible and intuitive — things that everyone ought to appreciate.

And so, here I am. I don’t claim to be an expert on the subject — I think that’s a LONG way off for now — but as a veteran of the web industry, I find the notion of making sites friendly to all comers a noble, vital endeavor.

Tags: accessibility, disability, introduction, lawsuit, Target