WebAIM Blog

I had a great opportunity the other day to be interviewed by Dennis Lembree of Web Axe and his friend Ross Johnson. Dennis is a great proponent of standards and his blog and podcast series are useful resources for anybody interested in web accessibility. He’s also one of the founders of Refresh Detroit and the founder of CheckEngine USA, a full-service web development company that focuses on usability, standards, and accessibility.

So if you’d like to hear what I have to say about myself, WebAIM, WCAG 2.0, Joe Clark, the Section 508 changes, the Target lawsuit, Refresh 06, the new WebAIM site, and lots more, check out the Podcast.

There’s been much discussion lately about the influence of accessibility upon the design and development process (and vice versa). Some of the posts and comments have been very volatile and may be offensive to some. These heated discussions between the visual design and accessibility community have begun to form a rift between the communities. The comments to Roger Johansson’s recommendation of using light text on dark backgrounds kicked things off. Jeff Croft then stirred the pot by saying we’ve taken accessibility too far. His follow-up, while slightly more level headed, still presents this theme that I am seeing more and more - that accessibility and visual design/development are somehow at odds with each other.

Here’s how the conversation usually goes…

Continue reading Accessibility vs. Visual Design - Why can’t we all just get along?

I love Firefox. I only converted to using it about a year ago and am kicking myself for taking so long to make the switch from Internet Explorer. I have Firefox loaded with excellent extensions and have written a bunch of Greasemonkey scripts to make my web experience more enjoyable. While the ‘official’ browser share for Firefox is a little more than 10%, 26% of WebAIM site visitors are using that browser, with another 2% using other Mozilla-based browsers.

As an open source project, Firefox development is very responsive to the needs and desires of the community and web standards are a top priority. This includes accessibility. I’ve written an article that provides an overview of the accessibility features and options that Firefox provides. This article was originally written for Accessible Content magazine, an excellent resource which will unfortunately no longer be published.

Read the Firefox Accessibility article.

Federal District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ruled that the lawsuit filed against Target.com by the National Federation for the Blind may move forward. Target had requested a motion for the case to be dismissed on the grounds that the American’s with Disabilities Act, the California Unruh Civil Rights Act, and the California Disabled Persons Act only applied to its bricks and mortar stores, not to its online presence. The judge dismissed the motion, saying, “the ‘ordinary meaning’ of the ADA’s prohibition against discrimination in the enjoyment of goods, services, facilities or privileges, is that whatever goods or services the place provides, it cannot discriminate on the basis of disability in providing enjoyment of those goods and services.” Thus the offering of Target goods and services through their web site are covered under these civil rights laws.

While this is not a final ruling on the suit, but only a ruling on the motion to dismiss the case, it does set a strong precedence that online stores are covered by civil rights laws.

The NFB press release headline indicates, “retailers must make their websites accessible to the blind under the ADA.” But from my interpretation of the ruling, this statement is too broad. The ruling simply states that the federal and state civil rights laws DO apply to internet-based goals and services. This ruling provides a powerful clarification that many in the accessibility field have been seeking for some time.

As the case proceeds, we will keep you up-to-date.