For Curtis Chong, the development of the Internet meant more than just greater access to information or easier communication. It brought new levels of independence, as well. Though he had always been good at math, science and programming, basic correspondence had been a challenge; blind since birth, he had to pay someone to read his letters to him.

“I figured it was just part of the world we lived in,” says Chong, who has worked with computers for several decades, even designing his own Braille output program before computers talked. Then came e-mail and, with the help of electronic readers, Chong found new ease in communicating with others, as well as access to services he previously didn’t have.

“Access to books was a huge thing,” he says. And so was the ability to shop online.

But as the web has continued to grow — and web page design has become a more and more important aspect of e-commerce — the question of just how “accessible” retail websites are has become an issue. A recent court case has brought the topic to the forefront, and some, like NRF general counsel Mallory Duncan, believe that how courts handle such cases in the future could be a “very serious issue” for retailers, who “want to serve all of their customers.

“It shines the light on areas that have been unclear under the law,” Duncan says. “Folks are waiting with a great deal of interest to see what the courts think about this.”

In 2006, Bruce Sexton joined the National Federation of the Blind in bringing suit against Target.com. Though Sexton uses JAWS screen reader software (which reads aloud the web pages on screen), the legally blind man found that he was unable to access the entire e-commerce site. The suit alleges that Target.com did not offer the alternative text coding necessary to make that happen, and therefore, was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as other California civil rights statutes. An initial ruling (now under appeal) found that the case was not frivolous.

“My understanding is that there’s a lot of variation out there,” Duncan says. “There are many websites that are accessible, and there are others that are not so. There are probably a lot of different reasons for it. Some of it may be failure of imagination. Some of it may be lack of appropriate technology. I don’t know what’s driving it in any particular case. But most certainly, it is, in part, a failure of federal guidance.”

Jim Thatcher, an accessibility consultant whose expertise dates to his having developed one of the first screen-access systems for blind computer users in the mid-1980s, says retailers may assume screen readers can still handle their sites. But when he sits in meetings with retail executives and turns the screen readers on, the limits are “so appalling, they’re shocked,” he says. Those not directly involved with accessibility don’t understand the limitations of the tools.

Consider, for example, a web page designed with multiple columns (similar to a page in a newspaper or magazine). Without proper coding, a screen reader will simply travel from left to right across the page, regardless if the beginning of each column represents the start of a new sentence.

Consider the increasing use of Ajax, a web architecture in which information silently changes onscreen without the entire page having to reload, or the many times details or links will appear when the mouse runs over a word.

And speaking of that mouse, consider sites created without tab options, so they can’t be navigated solely by a keyboard. That not only cuts out access to the blind, but also to those with limited mobility who have to rely on the keys.

“In the classes I teach, I often have people book a flight on Southwest Airlines with the screen turned off,” Thatcher says. “For people who don’t normally use a reader, that’s a really hard task. It is even for me, and I know these tools incredibly well. People who are blind are amazingly talented to be able to cope with all of this, and to figure out how to solve what seem to be the most intractable problems to the rest of us.”

How much will the “have-nots” pay?
One of those problems is cost. “To have access to Windows on my home computer, I have to spend an additional $1,000 to get that thing to talk,” says Chong, president of the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science. “Right now, if I want an accessible cell phone, it’s $600.”

As a result, some are concerned that gaps between the “haves” and “have-nots” will continue to widen, not just with the ability to shop, but even with the chance to make a living. “These divisions will grow,” Thatcher says. “It is a socio-economic thing. Jobs are increasingly computer-dependent, and when those jobs are not available to people with disabilities, that makes social problems worse.”

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