The Houston Business Journal was very kind to me and ran a byline on Accessibility in this week’s paper. The timing is perfect because today is Knowbility’s Accessibility Internet Rally Houston Rally. AIR is about teams of designers building accessible web sites for non profits for free all in one day.
It is also very cool that the chairman of the AIR rally this year is Houston’s own Richard Yoo of Rackspace. Congrats Richard!
From the article:
Don’t be a target: Web site compliance with ADA accessibility
Houston Business Journal – by Ed Schipul
Is the Internet a "public place?" And if so, are virtual
environments subject to the regulations spelled out in the Americans
with Disabilities Act?Those may seem like rhetorical questions, but they could have enormous implications for any business with a Web site.
Just ask Target Corp. The National Federation for the Blind is
suing the retailer alleging that its Web site isn’t accessible to the
visually impaired. The lawsuit cites violations of the ADA’s
accessibility requirements and other state laws. It alleges that Target.com
"excludes the blind from full and equal participation in the growing
Internet economy that is increasingly a fundamental part of the common
market place and daily life."
A big thank you from me as well to the Schipul team and the Tendenci team both participating in the rally today. Our jobs are hard enough and y’all are putting in extra time to help out non-profits. THANK YOU!
Congrats Ed. Your passion about the subject really resonates. As a business owner, I have concerns with selectively taking laws that make perfect sense in the physical world and trying to apply them to virtual environments. I tend to think of the Web as a communications vehicle and believe that a business has the right to target (no pun) its marketing at whomever it chooses. In fact, not everyone has Internet access, so having ANY presence online would HAVE to exclude a portion of the population. It just is messy when you really begin to think about it. Great piece, though.
Posted on November 3, 2007 at 12:43 pm.