Friday 23 November 2007

Advise to a visually disable friend to complain on a website they could not access.

The three Possible solutions are:
one of them ,I would advise my visually disabled friend to contact the people in charge of the running of the website,the company or website owners and let them know of the situation at hand,and see what can be done about it to make there website accessible.
Second possible solution will be to contact a company by the name Grouptree. It aims in assisting disabled people with accessibility problems and require assistance. It contacts the web owners and let them know of the complaint that they do not meet the regulations that are required for those with a disability according to Disability Rights Commission on Accessibility.
Thirdly i would advise my friend to visit the website http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/oldreport.htm that allows him/her to submit a complaint to the Web Accessibility Initiative by filling the form.Once the form is submitted it is sent to a professional company ‘Web Accessibility Initiative’ and then the problem will be looked into on behalf of my friend.

Legal Cases
In August 2000 in Australia,Mr.Bruce Maguire who is blind uses a refreshable Braille display to read web pages successfully made a complaint against the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games(SOCOG). Mr.Maguire took action under the provision of Australia's disability discrimination legislation claiming that he was unlawfully discriminated against on several grounds including that the organising committee had failed to provide a web site that he could access.He was eventually awarded a compensation of A$20,000. The SOCOG vs. Maguire case is important because it used both the WAI guidelines and the Australian Disability and Discrimination Act which is very similar to its UK equivalent to arrive at the final decision. Section 21 of the Disability and Discrimination Act in the UK places a duty on service providers to ensure that the information they provide is accessible to visually impaired people. This came into force in October 1999. This includes the information provided on web sites, therefore, it may only be a matter of time before a case is brought against a UK company now that a precedent has been set.

California law may require websites to be accessible to disabled Internet users, according to a ruling in a case against retail giant Target.Target was sued by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and one of its blind members, Mr.Bruce "BJ"Sexton, a student at Berkeley, University of California ,under a federal law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and also under two state laws, the California Disabled Persons Act and the California Unruh Civil Rights Act.
The NFB and Mr.Sexton argue that Target.com is not accessible to blind Internet users, in breach of these federal and state laws. They complained that images on the site were missing alternative text upon which blind users rely; keyboard controls do not work, meaning users must be able to work a mouse; and headings are missing that are needed for navigation.
Since the case began, Target has made improvements to the site's accessibility.

References:
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).(2007). Web Accessibility Report Form. Web Accessibility Initiative. [Online]. Available from: http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/oldreport.htm [Accessed 23/11/07].
OUT-LAW News. (14/02/ 2006). Target sued over web accessibility. [Online].OUT-LAW.COM. Available from:
http://www.out-law.com/page-6634 [Accessed 23/11/07].
Lasa Information System Team. Web Accessibility and the Law.[Online]. ICT Hub Knowledgebase. Available from: http://www.icthubknowledgebase.org.uk/webaccessibiltyandlaw [Accessed 23/11/07].

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