Target, $6 Million & Vision-Impaired Shoppers
DZ
Here is another big lesson on how taking in to consideration web standards, like those implemented by the W3C, (which Trademark follows and recognizes very closely) are soooo, hugely, utmost, very important to large corporations. This one happened to cost the Target corporation six million dollars to the National Federation of the Blind as a result of a suit brought by them last year. Target also has agreed to revamp its website to be more friendly to those with disabilities.
This lawsuit taught Target 3 important things:
- Build a website in which 98% of the population can visit, including those with disabilities
- If you don’t value the money people with disabilities have to spend, then you’ll pay in the end
- Treating people with disabilities like they don’t matter is bad PR (see below!)
The retail company has promised it will make its site friendlier to vision-impaired people who access the Web via screenreaders. Among other changes, the site will include more alt text tags along with images. These tags are invisible to users, but screenreaders rely on them to convert the contents of a page into speech. Target also will make it easier to navigate its site using just a keyboard, rather than a mouse. The company will implement the changes by next February.
In addition, California residents who unsuccessfully attempted to use Target’s site can claim $3,500 in damages–or, if there was more than one incident, $7,000 total. California has an estimated 10,000 blind people, while the country overall has around 1.3 million, according to a spokesperson for the National Federation of the Blind.
Target agreed to the changes to resolve a class-action lawsuit filed two years ago in federal district court in San Francisco. That case alleged that Target’s graphics-heavy Web site violated the federal Americans with Disabilities Act as well as a California statute.
“There are well-established guidelines for making Web sites accessible to blind people,” the National Federation for the Blind alleged in its complaint. “These guidelines have been in place for at least several years and have been followed successfully by other large business entities in making their Web sites available.”
A spokesperson for the organization said it approached Target and attempted to resolve the matter outside of court after members complained that they were unable to access the site. After talks broke down, the group filed suit.
The organization currently is working with Amazon.com to help the online retailer make its site easier for vision-impaired people to use.
If you need help on how to apply web standards to your online website development project please contact Trademark Productions. We live in a accessible world.
Tags: National Federation of the Blind, Online Accessability, Screen Readers, w3c, Web Standards