Landmark Court Case Sets Precedent In Accessibility For The Blind

The reason? A class action lawsuit against e-tailer Target.com by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). It was accepted a few days ago by the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Target filed a motion to have the case dismissed, but Judge Marilyn Hall Patel dismissed that motion.

The lawsuit is setting a precedent for the e-commerce industry. Industry experts say, it is going to change 'the way every corporation and designer approaches Web development in the future'.

Target.com omitted to make its site accessible because of "lack of alt-text on graphics," "inaccessible image maps," "lack of adequate labelling" and "lack of navigation links."

John Paré, the director of Public Relations at the NFB told Bizreport.com that if his organization finds other web sites which are not accessible, 'we will bring this fact to the company's attention and encourage the company to correct the problem. If the company is unwilling to make its web site accessible, then the National Federation of the Blind will take the appropriate legal action.' The legal publication Out-law.com had suggested that the case was unlikely to affect sites like MySpace, Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Amazon.com or any other US-based pure-play dot.coms.

The NFB says it's going to do everything to contest this. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) promoted by the W3 Consortium is considered the industry standard and offers a free testing tool on its site.

Tags: online retailing, Target.com, usability