[thelist] Color Chooser Review -- correction

[Martin Burns]

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On Wednesday, May 29, 2002, at 08:10  pm, Tom Dell'Aringa wrote:

> Lastly, even though Martin brags about his ability to walk into an
> office and in 5-10 minutes have
> them licking his boots and begging him to let them write "accessible"
> code, it simply doesn't
> happen very often.

Happens in every case where they get legal review.

You were about to suggest some examples where you've received qualified
advice to the contrary?

> As for companies "secretly" writing accessible code -- if its a secret
> how do
> you know about it? You don't, you're making it up to try and validate
> your opinion.

> Show me one case where a closed, proprietary intranet system was
> successfully sued for
> non-comliance to one of the silly laws you keep quoting.

Where did you get secret from? I see sites redesigning from inaccessible
to accessible, I talk to the people they're working with. See, not
everyone needs to go to trial to be convinced - some actually can get
legal opinion and be told "If someone sues, you'll lose". For example,
the AOL case, where they settled out of court when it was obvious they
were going to lose and which resulted in
http://corp.aol.com/access_policy.html

Take http://www.smile.co.uk/ - their banking system used to 100% depend
on an inaccessible applet. It doesn't any more. Take
http://www.standardlife.com/ - not only are they converting everything
to being accessible, they're pushing it internally for intranet use, and
so strongly for external use they're funding third parties to become
accessible. Take http://www.tesco.com/ - now nicely accessible following
a lot of work, which would have been easier and cheaper if they'd done
it right to start with.

Or look at http://www.cslib.org/attygenl/press/2000/health/blind.htm
which resulted from lobbying work by the National Federation of the
Blind, not a lawsuit. But without the law to back it, it would never
have happened.

Or again, http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/aprjun01.htm - lots of examples
of mediation rather than litigation, including a nice example of a
credit card company who agreed to provide and maintain an accessible
site following a complaint by a customer. The CC company also paid the
complainants legal fees.

There are others, btw, and plenty of intranet examples, but client
confidentiality prevents talking about them.

Sometimes they get it completely right, sometimes they get part-way
there, but that's what happens when you're on a journey.

But if you want ADA enforcement:

http://www.harp.org/carparts.txt
(places of public accommodation not limited to physical facilities)

http://lw.bna.com/lw/19990615/984112.htm
"The core meaning of this provision, plainly enough, is that the owner
or operator of a store, hotel, restaurant, dentist's office, travel
agency, theater, **web site**, or other facility (**whether in physical
space or electronic space**) that is open to the public cannot exclude
disabled persons from entering the facility and, once in, from using the
facility in the same way that the non-disabled do" (my emphasis)

http://icdri.org/sjsu.htm
"the issue is not whether the student with the disability is merely
provided with access,  but rather the extent to which the communication
is actually as effective as that provided to others. Title II of the ADA
also strongly affirms the important role that computer technology is
expected to play as an auxiliary aid by which communication is made
effective for persons with disabilities"

http://www.icdri.org/csula.htm

http://www.icdri.org/ocrsurltr.htm

http://www.icdri.org/lbeach.htm

http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/winter00humanrights/waddell2.html


I bet you can't name one single case where a non-exempt employer won btw.

Tom, silly or not, they're laws. A professional works within the legal
framework of their profession. If you're prevented from doing so, then
your job is to challenge that blockage, not celebrate it.

Cheers
Martin

_______________________________________________
email: martin at easyweb.co.uk             PGP ID:	0xA835CCCB
	martin at members.evolt.org      snailmail:	30 Shandon Place
   tel:	+44 (0)774 063 9985				Edinburgh,
   url:	http://www.easyweb.co.uk			Scotland
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