'Screen access technology has existed for decades': Visually impaired man sues Dell over 'inaccessible' website
- Reference: 1614953111
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/05/giannaros_v_dell/
- Source link:
The [1]lawsuit [PDF] , filed on Wednesday this week in a Massachusetts federal court, alleged that it is harder for visually impaired people to interact with Dell's platforms than it is for sighted users, thus violating the effective communication and equal access requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act ( [2]ADA ).
[3]
The suit noted that the rate at which "the Attorney General [is] bringing suit seeking compliance is extremely low," meaning Stephen Giannaros, who has cone-rod dystrophy and very little sight, would basically act as a "private attorney general to ensure Defendant communicates effectively with him and other consumers who demand full and equal screen reader access to Defendant’s digital services."
The complaint said Giannaros had attempted to access Dell.com both using JAWS 2020, a screenreading software made by Freedom Scientific for Windows, as well as iOS's built-in VoiceOver screenreading software on his iPhone. JAWS, one of the most [4]popular screen readers , allows visually impaired users to read with a text-to-speech output or using a refreshable Braille display – a nifty piece of electro-mechanical hardware that raises or lowers rounded braille pins depending on the letters read.
[5]
The suit noted, as examples of the platform's inaccessibility, that Giannaros had tried to look into a feature on Dell.com where the user can apply for credit through “Dell Preferred Account” to finance their purchase, but this resulted in an improperly formatted pop-up that was invisible to screen reader users. Instead, the website kept prompting the user with info from the underlying page. This made it "impossible for Plaintiff to perceive the additional information he needs before choosing this financing option," alleged the suit.
The complaint also described the plaintiff as looking at pricing options and encountering an “old” or “original” price that a sighted person would see had a strikethrough, as well as a “sale” price. The formatting meant the screen reader was not able to discern this, however, and read out both prices, which would be "unnecessarily confusing" to visually impaired users.
The document went on to note that the ADA had been in place since 1990, and that despite 30 years having passed since its introduction, "numerous facilities are still not compliant, leaving the disabled population in a second-class citizenship limbo."
Giannaros is seeking a declaratory judgment to confirm Dell is in violation, an injunction for the court to say the firm must make its platforms accessible to individuals with visual disabilities, an accessibility audit, training and other corrective measures, and attorney's fees and the costs of the suit.
We have asked Dell for comment. ®
[6]
The case is 1:21-cv-10347-WGY, Giannaros v. Dell Technologies
Get our [7]Tech Resources
[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/03/04/giannaros_vs_dell_complaint.pdf
[2] https://adata.org/factsheet/ADA-overview
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YEJjqKaNe2dsla@z-E63AwAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey8/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YEJjqKaNe2dsla@z-E63AwAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YEJjqKaNe2dsla@z-E63AwAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
not overly surprised
The number of websites which can work with text-based browsers can be counted on one hand and government websites are amongst the worst offenders
People STILL use the line "Internet Explorer is a standard" when w3c borkage is pointed out (https://validator.w3.org is your friend) - now modified to "XYZ other browser" but it really shows the competence of the average web code monkey when they don't even know there's a standards body they should be complying with (quite large outfits will push back on standards breakage complaints claiming there's no problem)
Then there's the privacy-breaching (GDPR) implications of having 3rd party javascript on the page - particularly that from googleanalytics, facebook.net, twitter, etc.
Informed consent? I didn't think so
Re: not overly surprised
Most of those GDPR cookie pop ups aren't compliant with GDPR anyway as they default to max tracking or make disabling any part of them challenging on desktop, nevermind on a mobile device. I was once asked to disable individually the companies I didn't want to track my usage, I think the list was around 110 companies long, each with an individual tick box - or I could accept.
Its amazing..
..how many websites don't either bother with the real basics, such as alt text.
Re: Its amazing..
On the plus side, I haven't seen the phrase "Best viewed in 800×600 on Internet Explorer" for quite a while...
Re: Its amazing..
Pretty sure that died a death along with Geocities and 'website under construction' banners forever on some freebie hosting space.
Harder
"harder for visually impaired people to interact with Dell's platforms than it is for sighted users" - well, yes. Being visually impaired makes things harder, that's why it's classed as a disability, so I'm not sure why he bothered saying this.
But they have a legal and social responsibility to make their site usable for visually impaired people too, so I wish him the best of luck.
That said, Dell's website is simply hard to use in general, and I'm pretty sure that's at least partly by design. And ever since LinusTechTips recent video, where they try to buy a PC and are actually scammed by their sales team, I've been pretty unimpressed by Dell.
if it's cheap as hell
it's gotta be Dell.
though in fairness, all websites suck according to a friend in the screenreader market, and pop ups are especially evil.
I suspect well over 90% of modern website which have put style over substance would fail also, so I do hope this chap wins the case and get a nice payout and it forces Dell to overhaul their site design, as that would surely scare the shit out of all these other none compliant website to sort themselves out to.
I always wonder if using an accessibility screen scraper would be like using a curses based web browser like lynx or links. If so, then it is a miracle anyone using them can get any work done. "Modern" websites are terrible!
I can see how a non-sighted developer can use i.e ed / ex line editors to get their work done because they aren't *too* bad to use once you get the hang of it (and there is a large proportion of blind / poorly sighted developers). But websites just suck.