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Re: Gap.com lame accessibility statement

for

From: Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson
Date: Dec 26, 2010 11:06PM

It is much more worrying (though, I suppose a whole other topic) how
unambitious the ADA Titles II and III revisions are with regards to
web accessibility.
Multiple suggestions for specifying web accessibility as part of the
revision has been turned down and, as far as I could see, there is no
real commitment to web accessibility anywhere in these revisions (I'd
be happy to be corrected).
Certainly the intended meaning of the law, that accessibility applies
to brick n morter locations as well as the web site, has been
established through law suits and settlements, but the status of
online only retailers still remains in doubt and there is no clear
definition of what constitutes an accessible web site in the
regulations.
Of course it may be somewhat premature to set WCAG 2.0 as the standard
by which these sites are evaluated, writing automated test tools for
WCAG 2.0 has remained a big challenge, so perhaps those guidelines may
not be the best measuring stick, but I was hoping for a more real
commitment to web accessibility, underlining its importance for blind
people. Oddly enough the ADA site has no header structure and, I
suspect, would fail a few tests itself, it was definitely not
particularly user friendly.
So I feel while the U.S. government itself does not take web
accessibility more seriously than this, we should not expect too much
of commercial companies that have a million other concerns that come
first.
Cheers
-B


On 12/27/10, Chris Hoffman < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> What automated accessibility test or tests did the site fail? Was it
> just the mobile site, or the full site, or both? I don't think it's
> fair to impute motive, and think instead that we should give Gap.com
> the benefit of the doubt and consider that if they say they are
> committed to making their site more accessible, then they are
> committed to making their site more accessible. They posted their
> phone number right on their accessibility statement, so if there is a
> major accessibility issue with the site then there is no reason not to
> contact them and let them know about it.
>
> Chris
>
> On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 8:05 PM, tee < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> Thought I share this.
>>
>> I was doing a research on Mobile version of eCommerce sites and stumbled
>> on m.gap.com, which has an "We are commited to making our Website
>> accessible to customers who use screen readers and other assistive
>> technologies." statement.
>> Yet both mobile and desktop versions couldn't passed the automated
>> accessibility test.
>>
>>
>> http://m.gap.com/customerService/info.do?cid=2336&;bc=accessibility
>> http://www.gap.com/customerService/info.do?cid=2336&;mlink=null,2178760&clink=2178760
>>
>> Make me wonder if the statement is kool-aid of the prevention from lawsuit
>> by  Accessibility watchdogs.  Look! We are committed to accessibility, but
>> we haven't started doing anything about  it yet and we won't be doing it
>> unless a blind organization suits us like it did to targets.com.
>>
>> tee
>>
>>
>>