Echos the recent lawsuit by the National Federation of the Blind against
AOL for not being accessible to people using adaptive equipment.
While I favor accessibility in Web design, I am leery of laws specifying
the accessibility. Here are some of the reasons for this leeriness:
1. Some Web site content doesn't lend itself well to accessibility. Should
art gallery or photography sites be required to put audio and plain ASCII
descriptions? Can be done but can end up contrived.
2. What degree of accessibility? This is a very big issue. Some
handicapped people look at the overal function; others look for the
ability to "do it exactly like other people". In public transportation
that exhibits itself in the split between people who favor shuttle buses
for the handicapped vs. people seeking to have all buses readily
accessible. In NYC, these type of arguments along with a host of
other problems squelched a project to install public toliets on the NYC
streets. The French designed loos were not wheelchair accessible. The city
was willing to prepare alternate accessible loos nearby to supplemt the
other loos. THis did not go over well with some advocates who argued this
was a form of "separate but equal".
For Web design, this type of debate can show up over formats and
navigation. Should every PDF file have an HTML equivalent or does the set
of PDF to HTML viewers offers by Adobe provide sufficient accessibility.
Some say yes. Other would argue that this places far more of a burdent
upon blind users than upon sighted users.
3. There is the matter of the overuse of law to foster good things. I am
cautious with the use of laws because they have a life of their own. RICO
goes from being a tool against organized crime to a potential tool against
certain types of protestors. The federal sentencing guidelines for the
"war on drugs" results in an inverse form of justice where the really big
dealers go free because they can cut deals with prosecutors while their
lower down associates get slam-dunked.
Now Web accessibility laws might not be as severe as that but I can see
many complicators. I'll explain them in another email later.
J.D. Abolins (who tends toward libertarian approaches)
Meyda Online -- Infosec & Privacy Studies
Web: http://www.meydabbs.com
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