In my last post, Accessibility and Client Expectations, a major point was on the practice of implementing accessibility as a site “add-on,” rather than developing a web site from the ground up with accessibility in mind. Some of the features which are implemented in this manner fall into a gross category I’m inclined to describe as “pseudo-accessibility.”
In general, pseudo-accessible features are those which:
- Solve the symptom, not the problem.
- Create additional accessibility problems in their implementation
- Reinvent the wheel by duplicating browser functionality
Read more: Pseudo-Accessibility: Reinventing the Wheel
One of the original reasons I started this blog was to track information about the ongoing accessibility lawsuit against Target Corporation. Recently, ComputerWorld published an extensive article discussing the lawsuit and surrounding issues. The article contains a number of interesting points, including a great quote on Ajax and Accessibility from Jeff Bishop, a blind application systems analyst at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
"It’s very, very, very scary. Before, so what? You had a missing [alternative-text]tag, but at least you knew there was an image. You could click on it, and maybe you could figure out what it was. Now, you don’t even know where to click. You don’t know how to interact."
Although the article doesn’t deal directly with the Target lawsuit, it does discuss the possible consequences if the lawsuit is successful. ZDnet.com also discusses this question in a lengthy article by David Berlind.
There’s clearly a slowly growing awareness of the potential of the Target lawsuit to radically shift the view of website accessibility in the United States. It’s already become law in the United Kingdom - it may become an economic necessity in the US!
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