And Web accessibility advocates everywhere are completely deflated. I know I’m a couple weeks late on this but I had to chime in. I’ve been following this case over time in hopes that we’d get some clarification to bring the Americans with Disabilities Act in line with the current media landscape.
As with with most settlements, Target admits no wrongdoing, which from a legal standpoint is a fact, even if it isn’t a true statement (odd how that works out, eh?). The Web Standards Project spoke rightly on the lawsuit aspect of the case…
> Whatever the legal ramifications may be, those of us who advocate accessibility don’t want to make this into a series of legal battles. There are no winners there. (Okay, besides the lawyers.) We want people to realize that engaging with people with disabilities well before the threat of legal action arises is always the best approach. When a company stalls and takes a case to court, delays, public relations nightmares, and skyrocketing costs are all that happens.
Target wasn’t legally wrong, but their Web developers should be fired. That’s all I’m saying. Lazy, uninformed coding practices hurting Target’s business (denying blind users from purchasing goods online). This isn’t about legal right and wrong, this is about allowing your customers to buy products!
It’s not that hard, folks. There may be resource realities that cause accessibility problems in small, unimportant parts of your site, but when it comes to core functionality you should have you stuff in line.
Target should not be wasting it’s time proving it’s innocence, it’s executive should be chopping heads of those who are keeping their customers from buying their products!
I have written much about Web accessibility in the past, and a few things on this case specifically. Check it out.
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