The Access Board has just released the draft of the refresh for the Section 508 standards. You can view them at this link: http://access-board.gov/sec508/refresh/draft-rule.htm

I’m sure most everyone that has used an ATM can identify the braille on the buttons of the machine, but what about all text and questions that appear on the screen…none of which are accessible?  As the US continues to play catchup in the world of electronic accessibility even countries such as the Philippines are making efforts… http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/banking-a-finance/15664-bill-pushes-accessibility-of-atms-to-the-blind.html

I first became aware of the new version of this editor from the following news article: FCKEditor drops the F. This article mentioned that the editor was now ‘fully’ accessible to screen readers and keyboard only users. Even the main page for the CKeditor website (http://ckeditor.com/) makes the claim that it has full accessibility support.

This editor is open source and versatile when it comes to implementation so it is has a large install base. You may have used this editor yourself without even knowing it. With the growing attention to accessibility and the legal requirements around this topic an updated ‘accessible’ version of this editor is very timely.

I have done some testing in the past with the FCKEditor in regards to accessibility and was curious if this new version was really accessible. So I took a ‘quick’ peek to see for myself. My focus for this quick test was not if the editor created accessible content, but on if the editor itself was accessible.

Keyboard Only

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the CKEditor does in fact support the use of only a keyboard! Many of the past keyboard problems with the FCKEditor have been fix. I honestly did not expect the level of keyboard support that I found in the new version of this editor.

To say the least I was very pleased! The one drawback was finding the reference to the keyboard only commands. It wasn’t that hard to find but did take me a few minutes. What would be nice is to have a link or easily discoverable way to allow a user to get this information from within the editor itself.

You can find the reference for the most common supported keyboard commands and navigation shortcuts in the CKEditor Accessibility topics document.

Screen Reader

When it came to using a screen reader like JAWS with the CKEditor I was sure I would discover some major issues. Again, to my surprise JAWS and the CKEditor worked fairly well together. There is still a steep learning curve and at times JAWS got lost which required some screen refreshing and rediscovering of current focus to get my bearings. Compared to the way JAWS and the FCKEditor worked (or should I say did not work) together in the past this was a tremendous improvement.

To CKEditor’s credit most issues of using JAWS with this product are documented. This was in the CKEditor’s Accessibility document mentioned early or if you prefer jump directly to the JAWS section of that document here.

In case you are interested I used IE 7.0.6001.18000 and JAWS 10.0.1142 for my testing.

In Summary

There are still some areas that are problematic such as switching from WYSIWYG view to the Source view. When this switch occurs the focus jumps from the editor to the top of the page. This is not good for a screen reader user, screen magnifier user or a keyboard only user.

Also, I was not able to find a complete list of keyboard commands for ALL available tool bar options. It could be that those have been deprecated. The FCKEditor had a much larger list than that outlined in the current CKEditor Accessibility Document.

In all fairness I did not do an exhaustive search but I still feel a reference like that, if still applicable,   should be easily discoverable and even be referenced within the CKEditor Accessibility Document.

I should also mention that I did not do a complete test of the editor for accessibility but took a high level approach. Even so, that high level approach shows that the creators of CKEditor have put great effort in making this an accessible product.

This is very commendable because all too often the minimal effort is done so a product can be called accessible. I am not saying that the CKEditor does not have accessibility issues but compared to the previous versions of the FCKEditor the difference is night and day! This was a *real* effort to create an accessible product and so I offer a hearty ‘WOOT!’ to the CKEditor team!

If you have had a similar or different experience with the new CKEditor please post your comment here.

This isn’t the first time that New York has required Web accessibility — the first one I remember was the New York settlement agreement with Ramada.com and Priceline.com from way back in 2004. My big criticism of the 2004 Ramada.com and Priceline.com settlement agreements was that they required compliance to a random collection of requirements from the Section 508 standards and WCAG 1.0 level 1 and 2 guidelines.  Settling now on WCAG 2.0 Level AA is a huge step forward.

To my mind, there are three big take away messages from the settlement.

1. Meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA.  WCAG 2.0 is here to stay and Level AA compliance is the bar that everyone should be shooting for.  Level AA compliance is being required by more and more public governments throughout the world and it is nice to see a settlement agreement under ADA Title III that follows suit.  It’s a pretty tough standard to meet and could certainly be clearer, but at least it’s uniform requirement.
2. Don’t Forget About Target.  NFB v Target remains the biggest reason why private companies need to make their websites accessible.  California’s Unruh Act and Disabled Persons Act, together with the enforcement provisions that impose treble damages starting at $4,000 are powerful tools indeed.  Only works, however, for companies with customers in California.
3. Don’t count out the ADA.  The latest New York settlement agreement just adds further reason why companies might face an ADA lawsuit if they don’t take Web accessibility seriously.  Although the ADA doesn’t include monetary damages, no company likes the negative publicity that accompanies claims that they discriminate against people with disabilities.

This instance took place within New York State, but this precedence should spread much farther than the state line.  As corporations continue to ignore the need to make things accessible they will continue to open themselves up to possible lawsuits.

This also brings up an interesting point that often gets overlooked as many of these same laws apply internally at a company as well.  Making your products and services accessible to customers isn’t where accessibility should start or stop.  Any corporation potentially runs across the same issues when an employee has the same problem.  Think about how many computer programs you use at work everyday and chances are 99% of them are not accessible.  It’s not necessarily harder to make things accessible but it does require different knowledge.

What often gets overlooked is the usability of the site. No matter how ‘compliant’ your site is it can still be unusable or at least not as easy to use as you may think. How so?

Let me give you an example. I was recently in a meeting with a client who is a large scale e-retailer. Much discussion was going on about how the trailer videos for some of their products are not captioned and how this may expose them to litigation by groups such as the National Federation of the Blind (NFB).

This company is fully committed to making their site accessible and if they could not get captioned videos they were going to pull the videos from the site! This is very commendable and it is also very refreshing to see a company with that kind of commitment to accessibility. Unfortunately they had not given much thought to the usability of the site…at least from the accessible view.

After the discussion on video captioning was done I brought up the topic of usability. I was informed that their testing includes the use of JAWS to verify the pages. This again is very commendable. I don’t encounter too many companies that bother to test their sites with a screen reader! Unfortunately the testers making use of this technology are not really attuned on what to check for. They listen to make sure the screen reader is reading out the text and controls but never really ‘hear’ what is being conveyed.

To demonstrate I used this e-retailer’s main landing page and immediately found two issues that a focused usability test pass would have disclosed.

First, products were being displayed with two prices. The retail price formatted with strike through text and then the sales price in bold colored text like this:

$159.99
$99.99

When the screen reader rendered this part of the page the two prices were read equally. There was no indication, other than the visual formatting, to let the user know what the real price of the item was.

Second, an image was used to promote the pre-order of an upcoming release of a product. This simply was comprised of an image which visually provided all the information a user would need to know. Unfortunately the ALT text for this graphic link only said, “Preorder order it now.” This leaves the screen reader user wondering, “Preorder what now?!”

Granted these seem like issues that could easily be figured out by your typical screen reader user but why make the user figure things out? A good user experience means that the site is usable without the second guessing and extra effort needed to investigate what the content really means. This leads to a great user experience, a happy customer and ultimately repeat sales if you are an e-retailer.

Not only does usability lead to a great user experience it also means that you are essentially limiting your exposure to litigation. If an Assistive Technology user can easily access your site, find what they need and make a purchase or retrieve the information they are looking for then why would an organization like the NFB bother with targeting that site for a lawsuit?

I am not saying that ensuring your site is complaint with the standards is not important but it does underscore that usability should be just as important. It helps in making your users happy and in avoiding situations where litigation could become an issue.

If you are expending resources on being compliant do yourself a favor and include usability as part of your accessibility efforts. Should you need help in this area or require an outside consultant to provide this service feel free to contact me and I can point you in the right direction.

I thought maybe it was a good time to put up a few posts that just lay out some basic information for some of the different sets of criteria that is out there.  Here I’ll focus on Section 508 and the 1194.22 guidelines that at the very least can be a quick resource for what they are.

A very quick history of Section 508:  The Rehabilitation Act was amended in 1998 and requires Federal agencies to make sure their electronic and information technology accessible.  While that sounds simple enough we can quickly complicate it with the separation of software, telecommunications, web content, etc… so for now let me just provide a simple list of the web content guidelines also known as 1194.22. 

§ 1194.22 Web-based intranet and internet information and applications.

(a) A text equivalent for every non-text element shall be provided (e.g., via “alt”, “longdesc”, or in element content).

(b) Equivalent alternatives for any multimedia presentation shall be synchronized with the presentation.

(c) Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup.

(d) Documents shall be organized so they are readable without requiring an associated style sheet.

(e) Redundant text links shall be provided for each active region of a server-side image map.

(f) Client-side image maps shall be provided instead of server-side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape.

(g) Row and column headers shall be identified for data tables.

(h) Markup shall be used to associate data cells and header cells for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers.

(i) Frames shall be titled with text that facilitates frame identification and navigation.

(j) Pages shall be designed to avoid causing the screen to flicker with a frequency greater than 2 Hz and lower than 55 Hz.

(k) A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a web site comply with the provisions of this part, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes.

(l) When pages utilize scripting languages to display content, or to create interface elements, the information provided by the script shall be identified with functional text that can be read by assistive technology.

(m) When a web page requires that an applet, plug-in or other application be present on the client system to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to a plug-in or applet that complies with §1194.21(a) through (l).

(n) When electronic forms are designed to be completed on-line, the form shall allow people using assistive technology to access the information, field elements, and functionality required for completion and submission of the form, including all directions and cues.

(o) A method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.

(p) When a timed response is required, the user shall be alerted and given sufficient time to indicate more time is required.

***These can also be found at http://www.section508.gov, but don’t go there looking for too much help as unfortunately the criteria is provided but no real interpretation or example is.***

I hope this helps at least from a simple perspective of what the requirements are, if you have specific questions feel free to sign up, log in and ask away as we’ll do our best to help you out.

Why?  Because my reading of Unruh is that it gets past the ADA’s complications in defining what constitutes a “place of public accommodation”– the biggest stumbling block in ADA web litigation.  First, a little background…

In order to sue a business under Title III of the ADA, you have to show that you were discriminated against by a “place of public accommodation.”  This is a legal buzzword that means one of twelve broad categories like retail establishments, social service centers, etc.  There aren’t many times that this causes ADA litigants any trouble until one starts getting into places that don’t seem like real “places” anymore.  For instance, if you call a mail order company to buy a pair of shoes and they say, “sorry, we don’t sell shoes to people with disabilities,” there’s pretty blatant discriminatory behavior.  But, where’s the “place” that the discrimination occurred?  Is the telephone a place?  (actually, a good litigant would probably succeed in arguing that the call center with the rude operator was the place of public accommodation, but you get the idea).  But, what about the Internet– it’s really hard to find a “place” here, as the bits of data that make up an inaccessible site can be just about anywhere and might not even be in the United States.  And even if you track down the servers that served up that data, do you really want to be the attorney saying that a computer server discriminated against your client?

Through several briefs, the Department of Justice was fairly successful in ducking this issue, notably in the Hooks v. OKBridge and Rendon v. Valleycrest Productions, two fairly old briefs available on Civil Rights Division’s Appellate Section Website.  I’ve never been fully satisfied by the reasoning of those briefs and I generally find Judge Patel’s reasoning in the Target opinion a bit more convincing (a very good analysis of that opinion can be found at the Out-Law site).  The key point to both the Target decision and the DOJ’s briefs is the idea that the ADA focuses on the goods and services of a place of public accommodation and not in a place of public accommodation.  True enough– that’s the wording of the statute, but it still begs the question of where the “place” is.  In the case of Target, the plaintiffs focused on the stores.  I’ve found this troubling for two reasons.

• First, because Target’s website isn’t service of the store, but a service of the Target Corporation as a whole, a plaintiff then has to make the convuluted argument that it isn’t the website itself that is the discrimination but instead it’s the resultant lack of benefits at the stores that’s created when visitors can’t do things like look up local stores, find special sales, and print out coupons– all things that non-disabled users take for granted when they go to Target’s website.  Apart from the mental headaches that this kind of legal bootstrapping creates, how can an attorney prove that this kind of two-stage discrimination really happened?
• Second (and far worse) is that it completely throws out internet only companies like Amazon.com.  I’ll grant that this is inevitable when suing in the 9th Circuit (which requires that places of public accommodation be physical places).  Maybe, the next ADA website suit should be somewhere else, like the 1st Circuit (hint, hint).

Needless to say, this “place” stuff in ADA Title III creates some nasty legal convolutions.  But, unlike the ADA, the Unruh Act doesn’t seem to have a place requirement.  Instead, it permits suit against any “business establishment” for discriminatory conduct.  Cal Civ Code § 51.  I’m not a California attorney, but my preliminary research suggests that this is a very broad term and includes just about anything (except private clubs) that has any shades of commercialism or business-like conduct.  Also unlike the ADA, the Unruh Act has much more severe damages.  If I can get past the next few weeks and my secret ColdFusion project, I promise to spend more time researching Unruh.

For a company that announced $634 million in quarterly earnings earlier this month, $6 million might seem like “nuisance value” to make this suit go away.  I don’t think so for four reasons.  First, Target fiercely fought this case and dragged it out– so why stop now?  Second, the court’s previous rulings got the law right and things weren’t looking great for Target.  So, settling now avoids a lot of trouble down the road.  Third, the $6 million only goes to class members in California (Californians get the lucky break because, while the case was brought under the Federal ADA statute and the California state law, only California law authorizes the court to award money damages– yes, what state you live in really does affect your rights).  The settlement authorizes $3,500 for each valid claim (up to two per person), which isn’t bad compensation for not being able to buy a $1.99 bottle of detergent online from Target.com on a given day.  Fourth, Target is under some pressure right now to make sure it doesn’t waste money.  While it’s hard to feel sorry for a company that just earned $634 million this quarter, those earnings actually represent an 8% loss in revenue.  If they don’t shape up soon and tighten their belts, there are going to be some pretty angry shareholders out there.

I’ll spend some time describing the case in more detail in a later posting (far too much for 11:00 pm) but a few thoughts occur to me.  First and foremost, from a legal perspective, we can’t get too excited about the settlement because it’s only a settlement– without a court actually saying websites have to be accessible, no one is yet compelled to make them accessible (this is no slight against NFB’s attorneys or the strength of their case– a lawyer is ethically obliged to recommend a fair settlement offer to their client).  But second, from a business perspective, major companies do have reason to be concerned for two reasons.  With NFB’s success, other advocates may sense blood in the water and this may increase the chances of getting hit with a suit.  Additionally, most major companies have a large customer base in California and they can’t just say, “we sell to anyone but people in California.”  If you can’t wait until then, you can always check out the settlement yourself at http://www.nfbtargetlawsuit.com/.

Of course, in our legal system, anyone can sue anyone for anything.  This is annoying for anyone, particularly because defending a suit is expensive.  But there are some things that companies can do to minimize their risk of getting sued in the first place.  I’ll explore some of those strategies in a later post, but the most obvious one is “don’t be a target” (pun intended).