How Disabled Users Access The Internet

[Webnauts]

“It is unlawful for a service provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide any service which it provides to members of the public.” More: http://www.websitegoodies.com/article/37

[emarketinvestor]

On that note, I'd like to share an email received today.

Web accessibility: First Legal Action Sparks Surge In Accessible Text-Only Solutions


The New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer's ruling on August 19th
(see detail below) establishes a clear connection between the ADA and
web accessibility. By assigning up to $40,000 in costs to two
corporations, he has brought renewed attention to every organization's
plan around their web accessibility provision and strategy. Over 100
organizations have now turned to the LIFT Text Transcoder including
Ferris State University last week (see their solution live at:
http://www.ferris.edu see text-only in center of page) and have had a
solution implemented within two weeks as part of their strategy for
three main reasons:

With the LIFT Text Transcoder

1. Access to ALL current content can be increased instantly with low
impact on resources.

2. The solution can be in place within weeks providing fast response
to any legal or user issues

3. The text-only solution helps promote, as it can be an option on
every part of the site, that the web site owner is addressing all the
needs of users, including those identified by the ADA.

Get a live demo of this solution for your organization at, see your
site in text-only:
http://www.usablenet.com/frontend/demoform.jsp\?prod=tt

For Immediate Release: August 19, 2004 - Department of Law: The State
Capitol - Albany, NY.

SPITZER AGREEMENT TO MAKE WEB SITES ACCESSIBLE TO THE BLIND AND
VISUALLY IMPAIRED

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced settlements with two
major organizations that will make the web sites far more accessible
to blind and visually impaired users.

In addition to the steps outline, Ramada.com and Priceline.com will
pay the State of New York $40,000 and $37,500, respectively, as costs
of the investigation. The Attorney General emphasized that once the
companies were notified of the accessibility issues by his office,
they worked cooperatively and creatively with his Internet Bureau to
correct the issues.

Full release: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2004/aug/aug19a_04.html


UsableNet Inc, 528 Canal Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10013

[Webnauts]

Rick that is nonsence!

Creating a text only version of a web site is pretty much unnecessary if you stick to standards, separate content from presentation, use clean, structural markup and ensure that rich media elements degrade gracefully.

More:

1. http://www.hackcraft.net/textonlyharmful/

2. http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_textbasedwebsites.hcsp

For example, test my web site with this Emulator: http://www.dejavu.org/emulator.htm

[emarketinvestor]

Hi John,

Sorry for taking so long to respond. Sometimes it's necessary to take some time away.

I totally agree with you that a text only website is unnecessary. In 1999 I received email from a young man with a visual impairment in Australia who had visited one of my websites. There was nothing special about the site structure. He revealed that he accessed the internet from his father's office computer. I thought he said there was a program that presented the page content to him orally. He wasn't exactly sure how it worked. Could this have been so? And if so, would the LIFT Text Transcoder be a couple of steps behind?

[Webnauts]

Rick can you tell me about which web site you are talking about?

[WSC-Will]

He revealed that he accessed the internet from his father's office computer. I thought he said there was a program that presented the page content to him orally.

There are no doubt, many software titles offering text-to-speech reading. If the computer in question was an Mac then that software might even come as standard.