Very infrequently on this blog, the two main areas of discussion (autism and web development) intersect. Today is one of those times.
You may or may not know that the US National Federation for the Blind are suing Target over their inaccessible site. The NFB alerted Target some months ago and to retrofit the changes would be easy so they can hardly moan about it – besides, do it right the first time, hire a developer who knows his job. Its not rocket science.
The really appalling thing has been the whiney response of the web dev community:
Filing a lawsuit after 10 months of their initial contact with the company (if this is true, a pretty short legal time frame even in this dynamic world) is an irresponsible use of our over-burdened court system.
The bottom line is I will not be the burden on the tax payers of my state by abusing a law that was enforced by some special interest group in a court of law.
The internet is not a birthright, neither is the phone, neither is buying an electric blanket at Target and it has nothing to do with lack of empathy. Blind people can’t drive cars either … shall we sue the auto makers that they aren’t making automobiles accessible?
Yes, it’s bad form for sure. Who doesn’t know enough to use alt tags? But I certainly hope the lawsuit gets thrown out.
Alt ‘tags’. Right.
This is not the sixties and we are not fighting an evil empire. This is simply a case of a retail company not putting enough time and thought into one aspect of their sales.
I’d say there’s a whole bunch of people here who like to put other people in little boxes. What would the collective response be if Target suddenly stopped serving black people? Or Jews? Or Hispanics? Or women? Or gay men? There’d be outrage and quite rightly so. Discriminating against a person simply because of their level of ability is wrong. Legally and ethically.
This isn’t a case of having to go back and make large scale changes – _any halfway decent web developer already knows how to make a page that will at least comply to Priority 1 for christ’s sake_ .
And thats at the heart of both the 508 legislation in the US and the DDA over here – no one _wants_ it to come to a court case but the simple fact is that a lot of so called web developers are basically shit at their jobs. If they really can’t do it right then they should get back to something they _can_ manage – McDonalds are always hiring.
But then things start getting really nasty.
Whats ignorant is thinking disabled people are normal. They are not normal. Stop drinking the PC happy juice. The idea that everyone, regardless of their personal condition, has a “right” to the exact same life is one of the most ridiculous notions of the modern era. Here in the US we spend 10x more per year to send one disabled kid to a normal highschool than we spend on the smartest kid in that highschool. Then we wonder why our kids aren’t as smart as those from other countries. Chances are the disabled kid probably doesn’t even know the difference, its only so his parents can feel their kid is normal.
I’m not ignorant to the plight of the disabled, be it from birth or some accident/problem during life. I have my own problems (although not to this extreme, I admit) and the one thing I don’t do or accept is whining and crying about it. Accept your limitations, revel in what you still CAN effectively do, and deal with the rest in a more dignified and appropriate manner.
This is from a so called web development community – SitePoint forums. I’m ashamed to say I have bought books from them in the past but they can rest assured I won’t be doing so in the future. The opinions expressed in that thread (and I only went three pages in, I couldn’t stand the sheer idiocy on display) seem to me to demonstrate something clearly lacking in these people. Yes, they’re largely ignorant on a technical level (one of these goons said as websites were purely visual why should blind people expect to be able to use them) but the more disturbing thing, speaking as the parent of an autistic child, is the indifference bordering on malevolence these comments reveal on the part of the commenters.
So you might be thinking – ‘so there’s some nasty arseholes around – big news’. And you’d be right. Ask any parent of any person considered to be different and you’d find some fairly depressing tales about society at large. Better yet, ask the people themselves and you’d hear some true horror stories about the interaction between those considered disabled and those considered abled.
This is 2006. Its not the 19th century. However, I fear that the likes of the idiots quoted above are firmly in the majority – those who will campaign to put money before people and those who will indulge their dislike of anyone different from them. We need to find a way to get past this irrational fear and hate of difference or not only do we become ethically corrupt (or more accurately _remain_ ethically corrupt) we stagnate as a species.
Vive la difference. Celebrate diversity. Whatever. Just try to find a way past the prejudice of idiots – then we all win.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Firstly, Sitepoint the company cannot be held responsible for the comments of their forum users, so boycotting their books is hardly a sensible or suitable response (and would be a little like blaming you for some of the nastier comments you receive on this site).
Secondly, you quoted two comments out of what is currently a 7-page thread; hardly “firmly in the majority”. It is unfortunate that Sitepoint attracts a lot of amateur designers, many of whom are kids with no real grasp of social responsibility (or spelling, judging by the thread) – it would be wrong to assume that the posters making negative comments about the lawsuit are all professional web designers.
The internet is a great place to say stuff that is shocking because of the anonymity it affords you; it doesn’t necessarily follow that one thread on a bulletin board reflects the world at large.
Accept your limitations, revel in what you still CAN effectively do, and deal with the rest in a more dignified and appropriate manner
And stop expecting web designers to have ANY ability whatsoever when it comes to compliance with even the most basic levels of accessiblity. After all, we can see it, and so can most people, so go screw yourself. You don’t need to go to Target ANYway.
(What a complete and utter arsehole; this is the sort of person for whom some sudden acquired disability would be karmic justice, yanno?)
_”Firstly, Sitepoint the company cannot be held responsible for the comments of their forum users, so boycotting their books is hardly a sensible or suitable response (and would be a little like blaming you for some of the nastier comments you receive on this site).”_
Except that the first person I quoted from Sitepoint is a Blogger and moderator of the forum. He’s not some random pleb.
_”Secondly, you quoted two comments out of what is currently a 7-page thread; hardly “firmly in the majorityâ€.”_
I didn’t mean ‘firmly in the majority od SP users – I meant the world at large.
I can’t believe how shallow minded some people really are! I appreciate some people can be naive, but these people are just plain ignorant.
We’re currently in the process of going over all sites built over a year ago and bringing them up to speed to ensure their accessibility for all. It’s a hard job brought on by lack of knowledge 4-5 years ago, but it will all be done.
I hope this gets dragged through the courts and into the mainstream media for all businesses and developers to sit up and take notice on.
It bothers me that people can’t tell the difference between lack of access and lack of ability.
Er, by that I mean, there’s an enormous difference between whining and self-pity because your body won’t do something in a certain way, and recognition that the world is built primarily for people other than you, and could be built to include you, but isn’t, and that this is injustice.
I’ve commented in the past that disabled people are expected by society to strive and strive and strive to be something we’re not (and this can degenerate into the whining that person is complaining about). But we’re also blocked out by that same society in ways that can be fixed, it’s not like all complaining that disabled people do is simply over the mechanics of our brain and body that we should just get used to. There is nothing inevitable or just about an inaccessible society.
I had an e-mail argument with a friend over something like this today, and your post weirdly cheered me up – it’s not just me that thinks you need to deal with the idiots 🙂
The first entry on my blog (http://gfgw.tripod.com/articulate/) is about this exact idiocy. I’m currently working on an entry about the disability of those who consider themselves above those of us who happen to have a diagnosis of one sort or another. It should be posted later this week.
I dabble in web design, and one thing I focus on is ease of navigation. If the site I’m working on won’t function properly in a text-based browser, then it needs tweaking. (That doesn’t mean I don’t use pictures, it just means I’m sensible about using them, I avoid frames, etc.)
I like Amanda’s comments about the difference between ability and accessibility. That sort of confusion is not just limited to the world of ITC.
What I find amazing is that any of the Target bosses and any of the webdevelopers and any of us could end up blind tomorrow by some accident (stroke, aneurism, bad mascara…) and certainly we are all losing our vision. Already there are pill bottles with print that is way too tiny for me to read without eyeglasses, and forget the Chinese dictionaries that I used to be able to discern if not understand completely (tiny print)….
It should be that hard to picture one’s self sitting at home, blind, with a computer and wishing that one could buy one’s neice a baby gift or one’s self a blender.
The thing is, that Target would end up profiting at least somewhat from increasing it’s customer base. Also, blind people have friends who might decide never to buy from Target again because they are being a bunch of selfish nitwits…
Kev
You’re spot on the money in your thoughts on these web developers. Unfortunatey most of them will be male, 20-30s and US based. The media, schools and society in the US (true elsewhere in the world too) have simply not equipped them to think about people with disabilities other than considering them as lesser beings. One of my kids is at at an inclusion school and they put a tremendous effort is making everyone aware that everyone there has strengths. Sure, they need to take it further and educate the parents in some sort of compulsory way while theirr kid attends the school, but it does eliminate some of the worst traits I’ve run across in even young kids, who dismiss special needs kids collectively as ‘spaz’s’ or somesuch.
On a good day I can brush off comments from people like this as being due to their lack of an education. On a bad day I turn to thinking that they all need a good kicking.
Ian
That is unbelievable. You’d think web developers in general would have more of… I don’t know… a clue? -_-
The worst thing is, it’s not just blind people who are inconvenienced by inaccessible sites. Ever try surfing through a slow dial-up connection out in the boondocks? Or on a mobile phone? Or through a thin-client terminal?
And I totally agree with the whole issue of accessibility versus ability– whining and crying about something that really *is* out of one’s control, versus something that could fairly easily be modified to accommodate more people. Two examples of this that I’ve personally experienced: un-subtitled DVDs (add about $300 total to the budget for subs, and you’ll have yourself a bunch of Deaf fans too) and roads without sidewalks or pedestrian crossings (add those amenities, and pedestrians will actually frequent the businesses thereon). But alas, movie studios and city planners can just be too cheap for their own good sometimes…
Accessibility – YES!
The church I work for just hired somebody new to develop a new web site. We looked at two different firms. Both firms had a list of the features we required – among them resizable text and accessibility for users of Windows 98 and smaller monitor resolutions. The reason for these requirements? We have a large contingent of aging parishioners, and they’re doing well to access the site, period – many of them are running older machines, and most need to be able to resize the font so they can actually read it.
One of the firms said that these accomodations might end up costing us extra. The other said they incorporate all of those features into every site they design, and that while some of the future additions (such as podcasting) might not be supported by, say, Windows 98, the main content of the site will be completely accessible.
Three guesses which firm we went with… especially when I checked out some of the sites they’d each designed, and the firm that said it would cost more wasn’t even using up-to-date coding and scripts. (I couldn’t even find code that resembled CSS on half the sites; it was all JavaScript, and most of their sites were left-justified instead of centred in the browser.)
The thing is, that Target would end up profiting at least somewhat from increasing it’s customer base.
AND they could make this big, happy, aren’t-we-fantastic type of campaign about how friendly they are to the disabled and how great diversity is and yadda yadda yadda.
We have a large contingent of aging parishioners, and they’re doing well to access the site, period – many of them are running older machines, and most need to be able to resize the font so they can actually read it.
I designed a church homepage and also a website for the ministry site of a very well-known Australian author and speaker, and both of those sites are accesible with an ancient browser, with or without CSS, with or without Javascript, with or without graphics, they’re low-bandwidth, and one of them has a feature that allows you to print the page formatted for printer (rather than having to print all the graphics and stuff). Took me some thinking to work out how to do all of this, but the audiences for these sites require that level of accessibility.
And you know what? While, yes, I wish people would upgrade their operating systems and browsers and get big monitors and a high bandwidth connection, etc. (hey, I can dream, can’t I?), I know that this isn’t always possible, and I’ll always opt for INclusion rather than EXclusion. Just because you’ve got an old computer or you’re on dial-up doesn’t mean you’re a lower life form who doesn’t deserve to access the content. After all, the content is WHY THE SITE EXISTS, so making it accessible seems like a no-brainer to me…
When a business, that is, people who WANT YOUR MONEY, make it difficult for people with money to access their site (or their premises), they alienate, well, people with money. That seems like nothing but damned pig-headed stupid to me.
Heck, I’m not visually impaired (other than having old, tired eyes), and yet I’ll leave a site that isn’t accessible to me (I use Firefox; some designers don’t seem to know it even exists; heaven forbid someone try to use Lynx…).
Oh. My. Where’d that soapbox come from, and why and I standing on it?
In case you’re not still following the original Sitepoint thread, “this post”:http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2505854&postcount=222 sums up how a lot of people feel.
There’s little we can do about ignorance except move beyond it. There are some minds that will never change, no matter how much awareness-raising we try to do. But we will reach a few. As I always say…one small step at a time.
Estee
Every time I hear whining from people about the “great expense / time it will take” to retrofit something and make it barely accessible when IT’S NEW ENOUGH THAT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE RIGHT THE FIRST TIME I get the insane urge to gobsmack someone. Not that I have ever done so, and not that it would do any good.
To paraphrase a well-known holy book quote:
“The stupid will be with you always.”
And by “stupid” I don’t mean those with learning disabilities, I mean those who refuse to learn. You just have to keep dragging them kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
:: grumble, grumble, cuss cuss cuss ::
me
The old adage “The views on these forums do not represent the opinions of SitePoint” certainly applies in this case.
As a company, we’ve gone to great length to educate Web Developers about how to build Websites that are in-compliance with accessibility guidelines.
Our Dreamweaver 8 book had an entire chapter devoted to accessibility, Section 508 and WAI accessibility guidelines.
The upcoming “JavaScript Anthology” title has a full chapter devoted to JavaScript’s impact on accessibility and how to minimize it.
Plus, we’ve published a lot of free articles about the topic to educate Web Developers:
Beware of Automated Accessiblity Tools
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/automated-accessibility-trap
Interview – Julie Howell, Royal National Institute of the Blind
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/national-institute-blind
Tried Surfing With Your Eyes Closed?
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/surfing-web-eyes-closed
Interview – Bob Regan, Accessibility Product Manager, Macromedia
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/product-manager-macromedia
and *dozens* more:
http://www.sitepoint.com/search/search.php?ps=10&q=accessibility
Which would be fine Matt if this were someone without some kind of official status on Sitepoint.
However, the fact is that the commenter in question is forum advisor and blogger. He’s associated closely with your product and brand and I for one feel I cannot carry on using a brand who is happy to associate with such a bigoted and ignorant individual.
I’m not suggesting that SitePoint haven’t had good things to say about accessibility in the past but this goes beyond acccessibility to cover simple human decency – if you’re happy to have an association with such a person then thats your right, just as its mine to express disgust for him personally and dissatisfaction with your company for allowing such an individual to represent you.
Hey, Kev, where would you suggest we aspiring web designers go to view accessibility parameters and discuss our designs?
I currently use my vast array of autistic acquaintances to test colour schemes and organization, but I’m about to start up a new site (complete with domain), and I want to do it right the first time around. (And I want to be able to make sure that the church site is compliant from day one, since I’ll be the one who gets to update it constantly.)
I’ve been astounded at some of the comments – actually several of the specific ones you’ve quoted here. Society is worse off than I actually thought, apparently.
I have been thinking (and writing) since then that perhaps ignorance is the big target here. The wider community is still so clueless about disabilities…!
Anyway, in some senses I think perhaps this is a time for the standards community to rally a bit and remind ourselves that we’ll get there eventually. Just maybe a bit more “eventually” than I had been hoping.
Hey, Kev, where would you suggest we aspiring web designers go to view accessibility parameters and discuss our designs?
That’s an interesting thought. A disability-friendly discussion site for web designers, and also for users with disabilities. Wow, that would be so great, if you could get actual people with various disabilities to look over a design and tell you what doesn’t work for them, etc.
As for Sitepoint, the statement that these views aren’t theirs, well… They’re apparently the views of a forum advisor and notable contributor, one might say a staff member.
If some member of my staff (ha, like I’d ever have a staff, but still) were to act in such a bigoted and hateful manner, I’d have to remove them from my staff. Keeping the guy around is giving approval to his opinions, and allowing him to speak as a staff member of the site.
Ah, well, I mostly only do web design for my own enjoyement now, except for a couple of highly accesible sites I still maintain pro bono for a few charities and at least one autism organization. I got fed up to the eyeballs with the web development community a long, long time ago.
Hrm…
I just purchased a new webhosting package, complete with domain name. Maybe I’ll set up a forum myself. The interest may actually be there. I’ll have to think on that, for sure…
And I expect that further discussion of this particular thing should be taken to e-mails, right, Kev?
I can be reached at uncommon@shaw.ca
Hey Kev,
I posted a comment last night on a different topic when I was trying to do some internet searching for info on biomedical treatment for autism. I noticed that it had been awhile since anyone posted a comment there. Then tonight, I looked around and found this one that you guys seem to be communicating on more recent. Do you still check the other one? By the way, I had a great time reading all of the responses. I stopped surfing the net and just sat and read all the comments posted.
If you have a moment, could you check it? I had some questions I was hoping you or someone else could help me with. Thanks, K
Sorry about that – we’ve all been a bit under the weather the last couple of days.
OK, so for those who want to learn how to make a site accessible, you can start with the excellent Dive Into Accessibility which starts from scratch.
Janna – your forum idea is a good one but already exists :o) in the shape of the accessify forum.
You will also benefit from an extensive list of related articles.
The aim is to meet as many checklist points as possible. You should note though that this checklist has several contentious checkpoints not least (in my opinion) a tendency to accomodate the needs of those with a physical difference rather than a cognitive one.
PS – Kelli, I answered your comment in the other thread. If you want to see the latst comments to the latest threads then click the ‘archive’ link at the top of the page :o)
Thanks for the links, Kev! 🙂
*bookmarks everything for reading as the new site gets underway*
Here’s a site that desperately needs a makeover:
http://www.spartangroupcanada.org/
The entire thing is images, with no alt text.
Now, granted, they’re an MLM, but.
I just wrote to the people at the above site. Hopefully they’ll take heed and do something about it. I looked at the source code, and the whole thing is images and tables. I have never in my life seen any code as awful as that.
Here’s what I wrote:
This is meant to be constructive criticism.
The site is not usable by anyone who uses a text reader. It is very visually appealing, to be certain, but much of what’s been rendered using images and tables could be more appropriately created using CSS.
Also, some of the links are broken, and some of what ought to be links really aren’t. Finally, there is no way to e-mail you except by taking note of the e-mail address provided and then typing it into the address bar oneself. That is merely a start, by the way. I’m an amateur web designer, and I’m sure a professional would be able to identify many more errors and explain why they are errors.
If this site had been designed by someone who really knew what s/he was doing, it would abide by the guidelines (especially the accessibility ones) put forth by the w3c. If your web designer has no idea what the w3c is, then you need to find someone else to manage your web site. As it stands, it doesn’t even meet level one compliance (and there are three levels).
Good stuff Jannalou – if they’re prepared to take that on board maybe they’ll want to hire you :o)
LOL – Yeah, right.
Though I’ve been reading through “Project:New” and taking notes. My new site is going to be so pretty! 😉
Another interesting topic regarding accessibility that I’m pleasantly surprised to see is starting to get some attention online: subtitling of online video clips. This one’s a particular annoyance of mine, as I often have issues understanding spoken language thanks to my quirky neurology…