The US District Court for the Northern District of California has allowed a lawsuit filed against Target's inaccessible website by a UC Berkeley student, who is blind, to go forward. This lawsuit is filed against Target by Bruce Sexton Jr. together with the National Federation of the Blind as a class action lawsuit.
Target's stand, that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is relevant only to their physical spaces has been rightly overuled by the presiding Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, who pointed out that the ADA prohibits discrimination for all "services and goods" provided by a public entity.
Being someone who has worked with accessibility issues, I understand that many websites designed to be as accessible as possible also come across roadblocks...but alt tags??? That's the issue of contention here...Target's website does not use alt tags properly throughout the website. They are missing at times, and incorrectly designated at others. Alt tags are one of the simplest, and most effective tools, to make a site navigable and understandable for people who cannot/do not see images. They are converted into suitable output by the assistive technology used by the concerned individual.
How difficult is it to employ alt tags in your website...and take those extra 3 seconds to make sure they read correctly? Not at all, this is plain indifference and negligence. Above all, Target's claim that their website doesn't need to be accessible shows just how much it values its customers with disabilities, or understands the real reasons behind accessibility.
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