Target sued for $6-million because website out of compliance with ADA

I'd like to point out, the captcha requirement to post to this blog, is not ADA compliant...

Thanks for contributing the conversation, Will! It's a complex issue, as you say, and one that needs to be addressed in all industries.
Leslie

Interestingly, the old ADA compliance checker (cast.org) was sold to Watchfire, and then acquired by IBM. Looks like testing your site for compliance isn't as easy as it used to be. gilvelasquez's suggestion of using W3C's guidelines is a great start.
This goes beyond just ALT tags, which I'd bet a good portion of the web design society overlooks anyway. It also includes things such as complex language, flickering/scrolling text, image maps and more.

Leslie,
One thing to note, the reality is that this will become an increased concept as we move forward in the Internet era. At our store, we have begun addressing this issue by acquiring a new content management system software called Ektron to deploy the next version of the web site. Ektron is ADA compliant for the web, and has clearly marked Handicap Tags where the content creators need to input for ADA enablers. Switching to these content generators alleviates burdens on the store – as well as working with content providers who understand the nature of ADA compliance.
That the NFB went after Target and the subsequent settlement overshadows the beginnings of this case, which I have been following for some time. The case was brought, in part, under the Unruh Act of California, in part because that California Law is one of the most stringent in the nation about accessibility to sites for the disabled (as has been interpreted by courts in California).
However, by doing so, the NFB lost a major part of their original law suit when the federal court denied a majority of their claim based upon some very key items that retailers may wish to take notice of:
1. Bringing suit in California Federal District court in part under The Unruh Act violated the dormant nature of the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution and would have held Target.com (a non brick-and-mortar establishment) to be regulated by the laws of California when all of the United States and other global areas can shop at Target.com and thus would have held the laws of the state of California to be at a federal standard and thus asked business to guide themselves by a state concern for a national commercial presence. As such, it was reiterated that while Target’s brick-and-mortar establishments within California are suspect to state laws, the web site was not. Target Stores, Inc. used the defense of many Houston oil and gas companies (Exxon vs. Governor of Maryland) successfully to argue against this California standard being fully applied.
2. Where the plaintiffs won: Judge Patel is notorious for “down the middle decisions” – on one hand he threw out the plaintiffs claims, on the other he upheld that the .com presence was a “viable nexus” for the brick-and-mortar, and as such that because one stepped in to the store as a result of the .com presence it was suspect to certain ADA regulation. However, Patel is a reasonable Judge, and looks at all sides of a case (Wow! What a judge is SUPPOSED to do!). Good for Target, as follows…
3. Many of the plaintiffs in deposition actually stated that they “found no problems with Target.com, only a handful of inconveniences that were cleared up by phone” (which is what the ADA requires – that you have another access point to the store’s online presence, in this case, by phone) and one could infer the NFB pushed a suit and Target happened to be the guinea pig. This also led to many parts of the NFB Claim to be denied.
Many of the plaintiffs who had technical issues with the site were defined (this is the legal term used) as “web Olympians” – defined as individuals who have a “greater than average knowledge of the technical workings of the Internet, e-commerce, and have both back-end and front-end experience so as to know how to deal with difficulties experienced online and can reasonably circumvent those difficulties without seeking outside assistance.” That some of the blind were able to categorized as web Olympians means that many of their issues were clearly minor in technical nature, and again, another reason why the court found to deny parts of the claim. Target will probably go down in Legal History as the first store to employ the Web Olympians standard in a defense such as this.

Target Stores, Inc. was doing what so many do in today’s overly litigious society – prep to avoid the long haul fight. This could have easily reached the Supreme Court (let us all be thankful it did not, as who knows where judicial intervention would have laid and we all may now be susceptible to the California standard). Undoubtedly, Target did not want to be seen as “anti-blind.”
The best way to avoid this type of lawsuit is simple: comply with the minimums of the W3C-WAI compliance to ADA standards and you will, in turn, comply with the most stringent of domestic and foreign standards. Also of note is to go beyond just the W3C’s WAI standards and move to adopt the WAI-ARIA compliance (the latter being applicable only if you use heavy Flash materials on your site).
So, in summation:
1. Keep it compliant to W3C-WAI,
2. Avoid use of heavy Flash based or ActiveX or Microsoft Silverlight objects,
3. Use plenty of metadata and tags.
Those three principles can be easily applied and launched by any retailer with an online presence. Have your IT department research and execute W3C compliance standards to ensure that all persons can easily access your site!
Regards,
Gil Velasquez