Accessibility law suits, it is not only about websites.
Most of the times web accessibility law suits turn out to be an eye catcher and eye opener for online businesses. But disability laws like American with disabilities act have much wider scope and much deeper penetration than it is usually perceived. Unlike Target and AOL accessibility law suits, recent complaints by NFB against Arizona state university have a flavor of accessibility of devices used by visually challenged users. Plans of the university to deploy Amazon’s Kindle DX electronic reading device as a means of distributing electronic textbooks to its students have triggered the case. Kindle is capable to read aloud the books to users who are blind, but surprisingly enough it lacks necessary accessibility provisions which will allow blind users to access the functionality in first place. The menus on the device are not accessible making it is impossible for blind users to utilize the text to speech capability.
Darrell Shandrow, a blind student pursuing a degree in journalism at ASU, said:
“Not having access to the advanced reading features of the Kindle DX—including the ability to download books and course materials, add my own bookmarks and notes, and look up supplemental information instantly on the Internet when I encounter it in my reading—will lock me out of this new technology and put me and other blind students at a competitive disadvantage relative to our sighted peers. While my peers will have instant access to their course materials in electronic form, I will still have to wait weeks or months for accessible texts to be prepared for me, and these texts will not provide the access and features available to other students. That is why I am standing up for myself and with other blind Americans to end this blatant discrimination.”
This clearly indicates that accessibility requirements need to be catered end to end. Accessibility features and provisions can be of help only if they are implemented in usable and accessible manner. There is nothing called partly accessible, it is either completely accessible or it is inaccessible.
Accessibility Specialist- SETLabs
Shrirang_s@infosys.com
Darrell Shandrow, a blind student pursuing a degree in journalism at ASU, said:
“Not having access to the advanced reading features of the Kindle DX—including the ability to download books and course materials, add my own bookmarks and notes, and look up supplemental information instantly on the Internet when I encounter it in my reading—will lock me out of this new technology and put me and other blind students at a competitive disadvantage relative to our sighted peers. While my peers will have instant access to their course materials in electronic form, I will still have to wait weeks or months for accessible texts to be prepared for me, and these texts will not provide the access and features available to other students. That is why I am standing up for myself and with other blind Americans to end this blatant discrimination.”
This clearly indicates that accessibility requirements need to be catered end to end. Accessibility features and provisions can be of help only if they are implemented in usable and accessible manner. There is nothing called partly accessible, it is either completely accessible or it is inaccessible.
Shrirang Prakash Sahasrabudhe
Accessibility Specialist- SETLabs
Shrirang_s@infosys.com
