From the web page http://www.internetlawyer.com/ada.htm
The Internet Lawyer -- Resources
Is Your Site ADA-Compliant ...
or a Lawsuit-in-Waiting?
BONUS: MORE ADA-COMPLIANCE INFORMATION
by Cynthia D. Waddell and Kevin Lee Thomason
"An estimated 48.9 million people, or 19.4 percent of the
non-institutionalized civilians in the United States, have a
disability" according to the President's Committee on Employment
of People with Disabilities
(http://www.pcepd.gov/pubs/ek97/facts.htm). That's nearly one
out of five -- a lot of people. So it's not surprising that a
few years ago Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA).
Signed into law in 1990, it "prohibits discrimination on the
basis of disability in employment, programs and services
provided by state and local governments, goods and services
provided by private companies, and in commercial facilities."
(See the U.S. Department of Justice "ADA Homepage" at
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm.)
Government offices and agencies, and businesses both large
and small are affected by the ADA. Elevators and ATM machines
now feature Braille instructions for people with vision
disabilities. Sidewalks now have "curb-cuts" so that people
using wheelchairs can easily cross the street without meeting
curb barriers. Wheelchair ramps have been added to buildings
that were pretty much off-limits to anyone who couldn't climb a
flight of stairs, and TTY terminals are now being added to
telephone banks in building lobbies for people who are deaf or
have speech disabilities. Even public documents and financial
statements are now being made accessible in alternative formats
such as Braille, large print and audio-tape. But the ADA doesn't
just apply to the physical world.
According to the United States Justice Department, the ADA
also applies to the cyberspace "world." In an opinion letter
dated September 9, 1996, The U.S. Department of Justice stated
that:
"Covered entities under the ADA are required to provide
effective communication, regardless of whether they generally
communicate through print media, audio media, or computerized
media such as the Internet. Covered entities that use the
Internet for communications regarding their programs, goods, or
services must be prepared to offer those communications through
accessible means as well."
[Emphasis added].
DOES THIS MEAN YOU?
The first trick is to figure out what a "covered entity" is.
If a law firm has 15 or more employees, they are covered as an
"employer" under ADA Title I. If an employee with a disability
protected under the ADA (i.e., a lawyer or staff member) must
access the law firm intranet/internet as an essential function
of their job, then the employee is entitled to request a
reasonable accommodation. (And this reasonable accommodation
could be the redesign of the law firm Web site.) Not only that,
but all law firms are considered "public accommodations" under
Title III as well. Thus a law firm Web site is a "program" or
"activity" of the law firm covered under Title III.
When members of the public who have a disability attempt to
access a Web site, they are therefore entitled to equal access
as are any other members of the public. But what exactly is
"effective communication"? According to a 1996 settlement
letter from The Office of Civil Rights of the United States
Department of Education (OCR):
[T]he issue is not whether the [person] with the disability
is merely provided access, but the issue is rather the extent to
which the communication is actually as effective as that
provided to others.
For a more detailed explanation of meaning of "effective
communication," see "Applying the ADA to the Internet: A Web
Accessibility Standard "
(http://www.rit.edu/~easi/law/weblaw1.htm). But even entities
that are not covered by the ADA need to address accessible Web
design.
For example, a proposed rule on communications and
electronic accessibility is now being developed by an advisory
committee of The United States Access Board. The Access Board
(a.k.a. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance
Board) is an independent federal agency created in 1975 that is
responsible for guideline development under (1) Section 508 of
the Rehabilitation Act, (2) The ADA, (3) The Telecommunications
Act of 1996 and (4) The Architectural Barriers Act. For more
information about this, see
http://www.access-board.gov/notices/eitaac.htm.
Clearly, law firm Web sites are covered under the ADA (and
quite possibly the Rehabilitation Act, too). But is there
really an access problem with most Web sites? In short, yes.
WEB SITE ACCESSIBILITY
Web sites which are perfectly accessible to fully-abled
people may be impossible for people with disabilities to access.
For example, that beautiful new law firm site that your
high-priced designer just created may be impossible for a person
using screen reading technology to navigate; particularly if
they are blind/low vision or have a specific learning
disability. Those "frames" or neat drop-down Java menus on your
site may be impossible to use via voice command software. Your
fancy "streaming audio" online CLE courses or video conferencing
events may be impossible for a deaf person to hear. And so on.
But ADA compliance shouldn't be the only reason to make your
site fully accessible. The experts tend to agree that
universal design is good for everyone. According to Kelly
Pierce, the co-founder of "Digit-Eyes," the Chicago blind
computer users network, and who serves on the Techwatch
committee for the National Council on Disability, "when World
Wide Web sites are accessible to people with disabilities, they
are highly usable and accessible to everyone else as well."
He continues: "As the Web matures and grows in popularity,
webmasters can be less and less certain that the visitor is
using the latest version of Navigator or Explorer." In other
words, accessible Web design also assures "backwards
compatibility" with older Internet browser software. But it's
not just older technology that benefits from good design. Many
newer ways to access the internet benefit greatly from universal
design, "people may be online with their PalmPilot, or on WebTV,
or browsing using their telephone. The closer companies and
other organizations design their sites to HTML standards, the
more accessible they are to people with disabilities and
everyone else," says Pierce.
According to David Clark, webmaster for the Center for
Applied Special Technology (http://www.cast.org/), "it is not
just accessibility for people with disabilities, it's about
'universal design.' Making the changes required for people with
disabilities benefits everyone. Examples include people with
slow modems who turn graphics off, people who access the Web
while driving in a car, and even doctors wanting to access the
Web while their hands are busy with a surgery."
In the future, therefore, universal access will mean that
internet kiosks, electronic textbooks and other new information
appliances will be accessible to everyone. But how do you make
your site universally accessible? It's not that hard. It just
requires some common sense. (And if you do it right, it should
not require the maintenance of a separate "text-only" Web site).
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Probably the first thing that you should do is to view your
current site with a typical text-based internet browser. Back
before the advent of Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet
Explorer, text-based browsers were the only way to go.
And like the name says, they are text-based. There's no
graphics, no fancy fonts. Nothing but plain old
"text-on-a-screen." If you have Internet "shell" access, try
logging in to your shell account, and typing "lynx" (sans
quotes) at the command line. On most systems, this will bring up
the commonly used Lynx text browser. If you don't even know
what "shell" means, or you don't have shell access, don't worry.
You can download a Windows 95/NT version of Lynx for free at
http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/lynxport.htm. Simply download the
zip file, unzip it into the desired directory on your local
computer, and you are ready to roll. If you are really lazy,
you can use the free online Lynx Viewer by going to
http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html and typing in the URL
of your Web site.
Now start up Lynx and visit your firm's homepage. Are all of
the links visible? Or does your homepage look like this:
"[image] [image] [image]?" If so, a visitor using screen reader
technology arriving at your page will only hear the word "image"
and not be able to "read" anything on the page. If this is the
case, you should think about adding "Alt-tags" to your HTML
coding.
If you have "frames," can you navigate through them easily?
Perhaps you do need a "text-only version" of your site. When
viewed with no graphics, does your page still make sense? Maybe
your graphics aren't even the problem, but rather your page
makes excessive use of tables and columns. Do you have
documents posted in PDF (portable document format) format?
Most screenreaders cannot currently read PDF documents. If your
site relies upon PDF documents, you will need to post both PDF
and HTML versions of everything.
Once you start viewing your site through the eyes of a
person with a disability, you will immediately start to get a
sense of how accessible your site really is. But remember that
people who are blind aren't the only people with disabilities
who surf the Web. For example, if you have streaming audio
content at your site, you probably didn't think to put in text
transcripts for people who are deaf. Although most of this is
just plain old common sense, there really are a lot of things to
consider.
Hopefully, we've convinced you that the ADA does apply to
law firm Web sites. But please don't panic! Most sites are
pretty easy to make universally accessible. Like we said above,
it's usually just a matter of using your common sense, and
testing the site with a text-based browser. And as the sidebar
article in this issue indicates (see More ADA-Compliance
Information), there are dozens of online resources on the topic.
Making your site fully accessible not only protects you from
potential liability under The ADA, but it's also just good
business sense. After all, why deny anyone the right to visit
your site?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Cynthia D. Waddell, named to the "Top 25 Women on the Web" by
Webgrrls International, received her JD from the University of
Santa Clara School of Law and her BA from the University of
Southern California. Currently, Cynthia works for the City of
San Jose as the ADA compliance officer where she wrote Web
accessibility standards that have received state and federal
recognition as a best practices model. See
http://www.amcity.com/sanjose/stories/102797/focus3.html
Kevin Lee Thomason, Esq. (415.732.5600, [log in to unmask],
http://kevinleethomason.com/) helps law firms market their
services on the Internet.
MORE ADA-COMPLIANCE INFORMATION
Luckily, there are scores of sites that relate to Web
accessibility, and that can help ensure your site is
ADA-compliant. Here are some of the best:
1) The World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative
resources (http://www.w3.org/WAI/). This site includes dozens
of online resources and how-to's.
2) Bobby (http://www.cast.org/bobby/) Sponsored as a free
service by the Center for Applied Special Technology, Bobby
allows you to run an accessibility check on your Web site in
seconds. Simply type in your URL and press "submit." Then click
on any of your links for further diagnostics.
3) The City of San Jose Web Accessibility Standards
(http://www.ci.san-jose.ca.us/oaacc/disacces.html) San Jose is
the first U.S. city to have developed minimum standards in
anticipation of the USDOJ Policy Ruling that the ADA applied to
the Internet. See also http://www.rit.edu/~easi/law/weblaw1.htm
This article is from the November 1998 issue of The Internet
Lawyer newsletter
All rights reserved.
Copyright 1998 The Internet Lawyer
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