ADA

[Sportsoutlaw]

Websites Not Bound by ADA Accessibility Rules, 11th Circuit Finds

The ruling vacates a federal judge’s decision that the Winn-Dixie supermarket chain’s website violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by being inaccessible to visually impaired people who use screen-reader software.

www.courthousenews.com

 

[Mendalla]

One of my tasks with the company I work for is to make websites ADA compliant to WCAG 2.0 AA standards.

That's actually what is specified by the accessibility law here in Ontario. My site is exempt for various reasons though I am looking at what might be needed to improve accessibility, but my employer's site had to be at that level by this past January.

 

[Ludachris]

Websites Not Bound by ADA Accessibility Rules, 11th Circuit Finds

The ruling vacates a federal judge’s decision that the Winn-Dixie supermarket chain’s website violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by being inaccessible to visually impaired people who use screen-reader software.

www.courthousenews.com

 

[Forsaken]

Websites Not Bound by ADA Accessibility Rules, 11th Circuit Finds

The ruling vacates a federal judge’s decision that the Winn-Dixie supermarket chain’s website violated the Americans With Disabilities Act by being inaccessible to visually impaired people who use screen-reader software.

www.courthousenews.com

This Judge should not be a judge, as she clearly has no brain.

The issue isn't that the website is a convenience, but literally is something that makes it so that someone who is blind does not have to go through much more hardship than someone who is sighted.

• They have to get to the store; if they have a relative or friend, that works, but they are fully reliant on someone else taking them there.
  • If they do not have a relative or friend they have to take one of the following transportation methods.
    • Bus: these will generally work well for someone who is disabled as drivers are trained (somewhat) to be helpful. If they're lucky, there is disabled seats available, if not it is easier for them to stand.
    • Uber/Lyft: Uber and Lyft drivers receive no training, and depending on the car that becomes very problematic. More over they are notoriously bad with blind people: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56583428. My stepdad, who is fully blind and has cochlear implants once got abandoned in Downtown LA 3 miles from his stop... Not exactly a service you want to use when you cannot even trust them with your safety.
    • Taxi: This is a step up from Uber/Lyft, and they do have some training, but again they can be notoriously bad with blind people.
    • ACCESS: This is a service for disabled people, but needs to be scheduled ahead of time. They pick you up, drop you off and then they go on to the next appointment. They do not wait for you to fill your prescription.
• After getting to the store, they usually have to find their way to the entrance, unless the transportation method will let them off right in front (Taxi/Uber/Lyft/Access), find someone to help lead them to the pharmacy (Access) and then wait to fill the prescription.
• After filling the prescription, if they had not filled it online or over the phone they will need to wait to have the prescription refilled, which at my pharmacy is 30-45 minutes generally.
  • Filling out online is normally the easiest method because all the information is there, and you just go through a step by step process; there is also usually screen reader only guides for helping with this on better sites.
  • Filling over the phone is complicated... Depending on the pharmacy or pharmacist, and whether or not your Doctors office sends the prescription to them it is easier or much harder. In many ways, this is more difficult than filling it out in person, because there you can physically give paperwork to ease the difficulty.
• After receiving the prescription, you get to start the journey home.
  • If you take the bus, you need to wait for next scheduled one.
  • If you take Uber/Lyft/Taxi you need to wait for them to pick you up... For them to pick you up they generally aren't that great at actually helping you into the car, and when it is somewhere you're less familiar with this is a problem.
  • If you scheduled another ACCESS appointment, and luckily were able to keep to the appointment this is probably the easiest... However ACCESS is not always on time, and you will be having to wait outside for them to pick you up.

As far as using a website with a screenreader... Unless it is optimized for the blind, and you're able to skip sections or areas, the screen reader will read everything. Most screenreaders have issues with forms, using tab to switch focus of a text field or option select can sometimes be problematic. Depending on how some things are designed they can be less accessible as well.

As far as the judge making a ruling about it 'just being convenience'... Since I first started learning web design, I have focused on accessibility and I still have times where I do not understand all the nuance to making things accessible for my stepdad; most designers do not put that much emphasis on accessibility, and instead just go down a small list to check off the bare minimum. This judge clearly did not take the time to understand why accessibility of a website is such a major deal to blind people, and is completely tone deaf in her decision.

 

[Sportsoutlaw]

This Judge should not be a judge, as she clearly has no brain.

So, everyone is stupid that doesn't line up with your thinking? Just checking.

 

[Forsaken]

So, everyone is stupid that doesn't line up with your thinking? Just checking.

If that is all you got from my post, then yes.

If you actually read the post and understood the context, still yes, but with the caveat that she clearly minimized why the person was suing the company, and why it is more than just a matter of convenience.

But lets just hope you never have any disabilities, and don't have to deal with sites having to be ADA compliant.

 

[motowebmaster]

If that is all you got from my post, then yes.

If you actually read the post and understood the context, still yes, but with the caveat that she clearly minimized why the person was suing the company, and why it is more than just a matter of convenience.

But lets just hope you never have any disabilities, and don't have to deal with sites having to be ADA compliant.

Disability Awareness requires one to share the problem, which you did, but it was long. Need to make it concise.

Consider being at peace with not convincing everyone, and sharing the same message again in the future - as if you've never said it before.

What would be a useful tool for checking one's XF site for ADA Compliance?

 

[Forsaken]

Disability Awareness requires one to share the problem, which you did, but it was long. Need to make it concise.

Consider being at peace with not convincing everyone, and sharing the same message again in the future - as if you've never said it before.

What would be a useful tool for checking one's XF site for ADA Compliance?

Here are some tools/links:

WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools

wave.webaim.org

WebAccessibility.com

www.webaccessibility.com

List of Tools: https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/

Here is a good general break down on compliance that covers most things that would concern most people here: https://medium.com/@krisrivenburgh/...elines-for-2019-in-plain-english-123c1d58fad9

Here is a good guide on alt text best practices: https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/

True ADA compliance isn't going to easily happen with any software, including XenForo, especially when user submitted content is the primary purpose of the site. To put it in perspective, I put more work into a single custom design I did for a newsgroup for the blind my stepdad subscribed to than I did for the majority of every other customer I had when I actively offered design services; there were a lot of things that I had to re-do or just outright remove or simplify and it does not make sense to do so for most web pages as it makes things less usable for people without disabilities. More over it required a lot of custom mods and modifications to XenForo itself, and all of that will have to be re-done when I update that site to XF2.x.

There really isn't a way to be more concise with the example of how ordering in person with a pharmacy goes... That was already simplified as much as I could. Simplifying it more defeats the point of showing that ADA compliance for pharmacies is more than just for convenience which was a big part of the judges decision.

I don't really care about convincing people either; people will make their own decisions or come up with their own opinions. If they agree cool, if not and they have a reasonable response than also fine. I just don't have time or patience for low effort people who try to remove nuance and context to try to troll; generally it just gets them added to my ignore list as I was asked to stop getting into arguments with people here .

 

[frm]

It would be neat if there was some kind of AI that we could use to pull for ALT tags. If you do a Google Image search for @Forsaken's avatar, you'll see that it's closely related to "Ubuntu" so the alt for that could generate as "Context missing: May relate to Ubuntu" -- same with every other image uploaded.

 

[motowebmaster]

I don't really care about convincing people either; people will make their own decisions or come up with their own opinions. If they agree cool, if not and they have a reasonable response than also fine. I just don't have time or patience for low effort people who try to remove nuance and context to try to troll; generally it just gets them added to my ignore list as I was asked to stop getting into arguments with people here .

It is obvious that you are passionate about this subject, and I think you could be a guiding leader for us on this, but re-consider the assumption that people who don't understand are inferior in some way. I share your negative assumption of others that can't understand, but both of us can't think that way

Motorcyclists+Disabilities aren't a common subject, but it does happen. An example is when we choose to go to a Trike (motorcycle with two wheels in the rear), to overcome challenges with riding on two wheels.

Let's consider breaking down ADA issues on XF into simple fixes:

One ADA issue on my site that may be an easy fix are Dynamic Avatars. Members are encouraged to upload an avatar, but for those that don't I'm showing a Xenforo Dynamic Avatar that isn't passing the contrast test.

 

[motowebmaster]

Another ADA Problem on my site is the Newest Members Widget. Something about the link not being meaningful. I checked the template and it appears to be a loop that is defined elsewhere.

 

[Forsaken]

It is obvious that you are passionate about this subject, and I think you could be a guiding leader for us on this, but re-consider the assumption that people who don't understand are inferior in some way. I share your negative assumption of others that can't understand, but both of us can't think that way

Motorcyclists+Disabilities aren't a common subject, but it does happen. An example is when we choose to go to a Trike (motorcycle with two wheels in the rear), to overcome challenges with riding on two wheels.

Let's consider breaking down ADA issues on XF into simple fixes:

One ADA issue on my site that may be an easy fix are Dynamic Avatars. Members are encouraged to upload an avatar, but for those that don't I'm showing a Xenforo Dynamic Avatar that isn't passing the contrast test.

Because of the low effort troll, I think things have gone a bit out of context. I called the judge stupid not because she did not understand the implications of ADA compliance, but that she made no effort to understand those implications and that she minimized it in her ruling. Rather than attempting to learn what she does not understand (such as the judge who learned programming to understand the Google vs Oracle case) her ruling minimized the issue of one being one where someone with disabilities could not use what is essentially a healthcare service (ordering prescriptions online) to one of being convenience. Ordering food online is a convenience for pickup/curbside/delivery is generally a convenience, but when there's a pandemic it becomes critical. Ordering prescriptions online for me is convenient... But the effort to do so in person isn't much more difficult for me. For a blind person or any disabled person it becomes more of an issue.

There is a difference between educating and convincing; you want to learn more about the subject, and are open minded. Someone like the low effort troll already made their decision and aren't really worth the time giving much consideration . I don't like wasting my time, and going back and forth with someone who isn't open minded can only ever be a waste of time.

Avatars are mostly cosmetic, and don't serve much point to people who are partially or fully blind. If you post the actual text of what is failing, I can tell you if it matters. Chances are it may just be assuming it is part of the content, which is where contrast matters. For something that is just essentially a visual identifier for someone... It doesn't matter much for people with more critical vision problems.

For the newest member widget, again it doesn't matter that much. It just means they want either a unique, or contextual link which wouldn't really apply to a profile link or a link to the member list.

 

[frm]

I'm only agreeing with this for an SEO standpoint and believe that I made a suggestion somewhere that ALTs should be editable. So whichever one is implemented is fine with me as these are essentially duplicate except this one has more power with law backing it.

Edit: Nevermind, it was a permission to edit file names. Both of these are synergist in the SEO sense, unsure about ADA compliance.

 

[Paul B]

I have split the general discussion related to ADA off from the suggestion thread.

 

[AndrewSimm]

Because of the low effort troll, I think things have gone a bit out of context. I called the judge stupid not because she did not understand the implications of ADA compliance, but that she made no effort to understand those implications and that she minimized it in her ruling. Rather than attempting to learn what she does not understand (such as the judge who learned programming to understand the Google vs Oracle case) her ruling minimized the issue of one being one where someone with disabilities could not use what is essentially a healthcare service (ordering prescriptions online) to one of being convenience. Ordering food online is a convenience for pickup/curbside/delivery is generally a convenience, but when there's a pandemic it becomes critical. Ordering prescriptions online for me is convenient... But the effort to do so in person isn't much more difficult for me. For a blind person or any disabled person it becomes more of an issue.

There is a difference between educating and convincing; you want to learn more about the subject, and are open minded. Someone like the low effort troll already made their decision and aren't really worth the time giving much consideration . I don't like wasting my time, and going back and forth with someone who isn't open minded can only ever be a waste of time.

Avatars are mostly cosmetic, and don't serve much point to people who are partially or fully blind. If you post the actual text of what is failing, I can tell you if it matters. Chances are it may just be assuming it is part of the content, which is where contrast matters. For something that is just essentially a visual identifier for someone... It doesn't matter much for people with more critical vision problems.

For the newest member widget, again it doesn't matter that much. It just means they want either a unique, or contextual link which wouldn't really apply to a profile link or a link to the member list.

I don't disagree with your analysis on the impact of the ruling but I do disagree on your thoughts on the judge and the ruling. The judge didn't rule that the US can't pass laws that define rules that websites must follow to support the disabled. Instead the judge ruled that the ADA doesn't apply to websites. The simple solution would be for the congress to either amend or create a new law pertaining to accessibility online. This approach would actually be better for the disabled because it would clearly define the required standards. The right to browse the internet isn't protected under the US Constitution so the judge only needs to determine if a law applies to the internet and in this case the judge felt the law did not.

It's unfair to call the judge names for interpreting the law the way he did. The name calling should be saved for those in congress that have not passed laws to address the issue.

 

[Forsaken]

I don't disagree with your analysis on the impact of the ruling but I do disagree on your thoughts on the judge and the ruling. The judge didn't rule that the US can't pass laws that define rules that websites must follow to support the disabled. Instead the judge ruled that the ADA doesn't apply to websites. The simple solution would be for the congress to either amend or create a new law pertaining to accessibility online. This approach would actually be better for the disabled because it would clearly define the required standards. The right to browse the internet isn't protected under the US Constitution so the judge only needs to determine if a law applies to the internet and in this case the judge felt the law did not.

It's unfair to call the judge names for interpreting the law the way he did. The name calling should be saved for those in congress that have not passed laws to address the issue.

There have been attempts to pass further updates to ADA, but most of them get shut down or ignored.

Since the original conception of ADA this is all that has been done: https://adata.org/ada-timeline

The reason why I say the judge has no brain, again, is because she calls ADA compliance for websites a convenience. Calling it a convenience is like saying being able to see is a convenience, as it is the same thing to a blind person who relies on accessibility tools to use a computer. To test out how difficult it is you can download ChromeVox (Chrome extension) or NVDA and try navigating Walmart or CVS while your eyes are closed. Form are also generally more complicated to deal with, especially when you multiple forms of different types.

Also, while this lawsuit specifically used Title III, the focus should have been on the fact that he was trying to use a pharmacy service which is completely different. As pharmacies fall under healthcare, they are required by law to have an accessible website that offers services to people with disabilities.

This case is also undergoing consideration for a rehearing: https://www.adatitleiii.com/2021/05...rcuit-actively-considering-rehearing-request/

As far as congress goes, there have been a number of attempts to update the ADA with website compliance for years. The fact it hasn't happened yet is very much in line with what I would expect from a fragmented self servicing political body.

 

[AndrewSimm]

There have been attempts to pass further updates to ADA, but most of them get shut down or ignored.

Since the original conception of ADA this is all that has been done: https://adata.org/ada-timeline

The reason why I say the judge has no brain, again, is because she calls ADA compliance for websites a convenience. Calling it a convenience is like saying being able to see is a convenience, as it is the same thing to a blind person who relies on accessibility tools to use a computer. To test out how difficult it is you can download ChromeVox (Chrome extension) or NVDA and try navigating Walmart or CVS while your eyes are closed. Form are also generally more complicated to deal with, especially when you multiple forms of different types.

Also, while this lawsuit specifically used Title III, the focus should have been on the fact that he was trying to use a pharmacy service which is completely different. As pharmacies fall under healthcare, they are required by law to have an accessible website that offers services to people with disabilities.

This case is also undergoing consideration for a rehearing: https://www.adatitleiii.com/2021/05...rcuit-actively-considering-rehearing-request/

As far as congress goes, there have been a number of attempts to update the ADA with website compliance for years. The fact it hasn't happened yet is very much in line with what I would expect from a fragmented self servicing political body.

I don't disagree with much you said but what the judge is saying is that ADA wasn't written with any intent to regulate websites. The judges ruling is actually good for the disabled because it will force congress to consider specific laws targeting the internet. Future regulation will likely look at what purpose a website holds and that will regulate the level of ADA requirement. Calling it a convenience is him saying that it isn't covered by ADA and not required, aka a convenience.

 

[djbaxter]

It is one thing for a website owner to adopt various accessibility measures for the benefit of customers, clients, members, or even occasional visitors to the site.

It is quite another to enact legislation that requires all website owners to do so.

For all public and government sites, accessibility should be mandatory. I agree with that. Every citizen of a country needs access to such sites.

For larger businesses and corporations, it makes good sense to do make the sites fully accessible. Should that be legislated? I'm not convinced that public opinion, reviews, etc., wouldn't be a better road to take.

For many small businesses, it is an additional expense that often does not affect any of their customers (depending on the business niche and the location), in which case making their participation mandatory is like an additional punitive tax.

For niche membership-based forums, this should be a decision left up to the site owner, not forced by legislation.

 

[Forsaken]

I don't disagree with much you said but what the judge is saying is that ADA wasn't written with any intent to regulate websites. The judges ruling is actually good for the disabled because it will force congress to consider specific laws targeting the internet. Future regulation will likely look at what purpose a website holds and that will regulate the level of ADA requirement. Calling it a convenience is him saying that it isn't covered by ADA and not required, aka a convenience.

Again Congress has repeatedly prevented expansion of ADA or similar laws. This is not a good thing as it ignores previous precedent, and it was a situation of healthcare.

It is one thing for a website owner to adopt various accessibility measures for the benefit of customers, clients, members, or even occasional visitors to the site.

It is quite another to enact legislation that requires all website owners to do so.

For all public and government sites, accessibility should be mandatory. I agree with that. Every citizen of a country needs access to such sites.

For larger businesses and corporations, it makes good sense to do make the sites fully accessible. Should that be legislated? I'm not convinced that public opinion, reviews, etc., wouldn't be a better road to take.

For many small businesses, it is an additional expense that often does not affect any of their customers (depending on the business niche and the location), in which case making their participation mandatory is like an additional punitive tax.

For niche membership-based forums, this should be a decision left up to the site owner, not forced by legislation.

ADA affects businesses, not privately owned forums. It also rarely would affect a small business, though it is not hard to be compliant.

Most modern software is somewhat ADA compliant. There are things Xenforo can improve on, but overall it works enough to not be an issue. Even the overly compliant site I worked on isn't fully compliant, because they're are things that are almost impossible to make compliant.

You as a forum owner aren't forced to be ADA compliant unless you're a business and then you should still mostly be fine too some extent.

 

[AndrewSimm]

Again Congress has repeatedly prevented expansion of ADA or similar laws. This is not a good thing as it ignores previous precedent, and it was a situation of healthcare.



ADA affects businesses, not privately owned forums. It also rarely would affect a small business, though it is not hard to be compliant.

Most modern software is somewhat ADA compliant. There are things Xenforo can improve on, but overall it works enough to not be an issue. Even the overly compliant site I worked on isn't fully compliant, because they're are things that are almost impossible to make compliant.

You as a forum owner aren't forced to be ADA compliant unless you're a business and then you should still mostly be fine too some extent.

You're putting personal preference into a court decision. The job of the court is not to rule what should be law but what is law. I think it is awesome that you are passionate about access for disabled individuals and I wish congress would properly address it. I understand that you don't have faith in congress, and I can't fault you for that, but we also can't have a judicial system that attempts to apply laws to areas that the law was not intended.