
Winn-Dixie ordered to update website for the blind - nvahalik
http://legalnewsline.com/stories/511127037-first-of-its-kind-trial-goes-plaintiff-s-way-winn-dixie-ordered-to-update-website-for-the-blind
======
sergiotapia
>“Therefore, Winn-Dixie has violated the ADA because the inaccessibility of
its website has denied Gil the full and equal enjoyment of the goods,
services, facilities, privileges, advantages or accommodations that Winn-Dixie
offers to its sighted customers.”

Can't you argue this for literally any company of any kind?

This will set a dangerous precedent and cost businesses a lot of money and
adding zero value to most existing paying customers.

So now if I build a shitty website selling homemade candles I can get sued
because I didn't use the right accessibility tags?

Also $37k to add features for the blind is ridiculously low.

~~~
matthewmacleod
_This will set a dangerous precedent and cost businesses a lot of money and
adding zero value to most existing paying customers._

Isn't this entirely the point, though?

We can make a reasonable assumption that if it were generally profitable to
make services and venues accessible, then it would already be done. It's
precisely _because_ it's not cost-efficient that regulation has to exist.

That assumes, of course, that you accept the central conceit that it's a good
idea to ensure that people with a variety of disabilities can access services
and aren't generally shut out of mainstream society.

Quite aside from anything, WCAG is hardly onerous to comply with.

~~~
13years
>WCAG is hardly onerous to comply with

This is pretty much the argument by which all legislation is passed. It will
ultimately be the weight of all legislation in the end that will leave the
internet in the hands of only large corporations and leave the people without
a free internet.

You will also never get what was originally intended. Laws will be passed for
regulation which will be turned over to a regulatory agency which will be
lobbied by the most powerful corporation which will in turn implement rules
for exclusively their benefit outside of the original intent.

------
protomyth
_Chris Keroack, an employee of software testing company Equal Entry, estimated
it would cost less than $37,000 for the company to update its site._

Great, now instead of a manger that has no clue on estimates, we get to deal
with and outside testing firm.

~~~
metaphor
I'm sure Keroack is jumping at the opportunity to sign a $37k firm-fixed
contract which assumes all legal liability. /s

~~~
protomyth
I'm sure that given the name of Keroack's firm, it's all about the expert
testimony and not testing services.

------
analog31
Oddly enough the website for my very small side-business is probably
compliant, if compatibility with screen reader software is the criterion.

I've told this story before: When I first learned about HTML in a magazine
article, one of the promised benefits was that you could create specialized
browsers that could use the tags to interpret a site in various ways. One of
the possibilities mentioned in the article was a browser for the blind.

What I think has happened subsequently is that the Web quickly went from
rather plain HTML, to being a general purpose programming language for
rendering arbitrary content on a specific collection of browsers.

I'd be happy to switch my site back to plain HTML, like what I wrote in an
evening when I first launched my business.

~~~
tyingq
WCAG 2.0 AA would be difficult to comply with accidentally.

A fair amount is just common sense, but some parts require deliberate changes.

[https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/)

~~~
analog31
Thanks for that. It's a big read, but I'll try to work my way through it. I
actually care about this stuff -- supporting the blind is something that I
should be trying to take care of.

------
jnordwick
Sounds like the equivalent pre internet situation would be sueing a grocery
store that has a Sunday newspaper circular for them not providing it also in
braille.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
sure, if the newspaper had ways for you to purchase stuff directly from the
newspaper and maybe deals available only if you can read the newspaper.

~~~
fiblye
Plenty of newspapers offer various coupons and discounts to readers. Many
grocery stores also have flyers near the entrance offering small discounts to
people who happen to grab one when they walk in.

------
metaphor
> ...Winn-Dixie’s website is heavily integrated with the company’s physical
> store locations, making it subject to the ADA.

Heavily integrated?? GTFO.

10+ years of shopping at Winn-Dixie...until today, number of instances I've
visited their website: precisely _zero_

~~~
tchaffee
I've never used their bathroom. And I've never used their handicap bathroom
either. So do away with both, right? Just because _you_ haven't used it, is
not proof of how little or how much the bathrooms or website are integrated
with the physical store.

~~~
metaphor
Perhaps _you_ should actually visit their website and observe that it's
nothing like your typical ecommerce front.

The applicability of bathrooms, handicap stalls, parking ramps, etc. are
predicated by the existence of B&M store fronts, which is their primary mode
of consumer-facing business and drives the requirement of ADA compliance.

To the point of integration, I challenge you to point out _any_ mechanism that
would prohibit me from completing an in-store transaction to the non-compliant
disadvantage of the disabled without requiring a visit to their website.

Since proof is the exclusive domain of mathematics, I can merely _demonstrate
with high certainty_ that 10+ years of shopping at Winn-Dixie--slightly biased
as a tech-oriented customer with a professional engineering background--has
yet to compel me otherwise.

~~~
tchaffee
> I challenge you to point out any mechanism that would prohibit me from
> completing an in-store transaction to the non-compliant disadvantage of the
> disabled without requiring a visit to their website.

You can get coupons on their website. As a blind person, I would need to take
extra steps in order to get those coupons.

You can refill prescriptions online and save time, rather than waiting in the
store.

There you go. Time to stop moaning and get busy and start making the website
ADA compliant.

> has yet to compel me otherwise.

Again, I've never used their handicap bathroom. Or any of their bathrooms. You
having not used it is a very weak argument. Apparently it wouldn't even stand
up in a court of law.

~~~
metaphor
You've completely missed the mark by failing to point out any mechanism that
addresses _a material disadvantage that would otherwise compel a customer to
visit their website_ , visually impaired or not.

Restated, point out a material disadvantage that I would directly suffer if I
didn't visit their website...you'd have to establish that I _must_ visit this
website before you can make a valid argument. Failing to clearly establish
this criterion begs to question what it means to be _heavily integrated_.

> You can get coupons on their website. As a blind person, I would need to
> take extra steps in order to get those coupons.

You mean the same coupons that are provided 1.) at the entrance of each store;
2.) posted on applicable product in every isle; 3.) stuffed in your snail
mailbox; and 4.) spammed to your e-mail inbox. Your argument is asymptotic to
a B&M store which _doesn 't_ have a website being legally required to create
and maintain one in compliance with the ADA because electronic coupons are
somehow universally equitable to the visually impaired...and yet here we are
discussing litigation precisely because they're not.

> You can refill prescriptions online and save time, rather than waiting in
> the store.

So what you're saying is the time it takes for someone who is visually
impaired to independently navigate and fill out a _compliant_ web form is, in
some qualitative sense of average, _less_ than the time it would take for a
pharmacy specialist without an equivalent disability to perform the same task.
Oh how easily this digital generation has forgotten that a vanilla phone call
is a valid method of achieving certain end goals.

> Again, I've never used their handicap bathroom. Or any of their bathrooms.
> You having not used it is a very weak argument.

Again, your counter-argument is a red herring and _irrelevant_ : the existence
of handicap bathroom provisions is a requirement of ADA compliance, which is
_predicated on and applicable to the existence of a B &M store front_...it has
nothing to do a website! It doesn't matter that you've never used the physical
resource; there's clear and established requirements traceability to existing
statute.

To wit, what wasn't clearly delineated was _website != public accommodation_ ,
which the court disagreed with based on the premise that the website in
question was, by their definition, _heavily integrated with the company 's
physical store locations_.

Accessibility of the website is _not_ what's being questioned...I'm calling
bullshit on the legal finding that this website was _heavily integrated_.

The onus is on you to understand the logic.

~~~
tchaffee
> You mean the same coupons that are provided 1.) at the entrance of each
> store; 2.) posted on applicable product in every isle; 3.) stuffed in your
> snail mailbox; and 4.) spammed to your e-mail inbox.

Yes. Those same coupons. It takes less time to get them on the website _when
it works_. The extra time it takes to for those other methods you listed is a
"material inconvenience" for a blind person. All of the methods you listed
require the assistance of another person. Getting them from the website does
not require the assistance of another person.

> So what you're saying is the time it takes for someone who is visually
> impaired to independently navigate and fill out a compliant web form is, in
> some qualitative sense of average, less than the time it would take for a
> pharmacy specialist without an equivalent disability to perform the same
> task.

Yes. If there is a long line.

And a blind person doesn't have to wait at the pharmacy for 20 minutes _after_
having the pharmacist do what could have completed at home at their own
convenience. That again is a "material disadvantage" that people who are not
blind do not have to suffer: 1) wait in line for the pharmacist. 2) wait again
for the script to be filled.

There is also the question of privacy. A blind person has no way of telling
who is listening in on the conversation while at the pharmacy counter. A non-
blind person is able to use the website to enjoy this added privacy.

You should read the court ruling (only 13 pages) so you can learn all of the
above and more details about why the court ruled the way it did.

> It doesn't matter that you've never used the physical resource; there's
> clear and established requirements traceability to existing statute.

It's good to see you're finally starting to understand that whether or not
_you have personally used the website_ (or bathroom) has nothing to do with
the law. Agreed this lawsuit covers new territory. But your usage (or lack
usage) of the website proves nothing about how integrated the website is with
the physical location.

> The onus is on you to understand the logic.

If there's any onus, it's on Winn Dixie to fix their website. Per the court
ruling. And perhaps the onus is on you to stop making assumptions about the
life of a blind person, and to read the court ruling in full so you don't make
ignorant sounding statements about what is and isn't convenient for a blind
person compared to a non-blind person.

~~~
metaphor
> The extra time it takes to for those other methods you listed is a "material
> inconvenience" for a blind person. All of the methods you listed require the
> assistance of another person.

How convenient that you've completely ignored the intentfully positioned point
(4) and purposely withheld point (5) mobile app, then proceed to conflate
subjective _inconvenience_ with objective _disadvantage_ , then fail to
address the asymptotic counter-point given. There exists more than one method
to acquire the same coupons: none of which are exclusive to a particular
distribution medium, all of which are subjectively inconvenient to some
degree, and at least one of which is accessible to the visually impaired.

> And a blind person doesn't have to wait...

How convenient that you've completely ignored the prepostured phone call
alternative remark, then substantiate your realigned definition of
_disadvantage_ with conditionally objective points and still fail to
acknowledge that the mentioned alternative affords the same privilege which is
_not_ inaccessible to the visually impaired. There exists more than one way to
expedite a prescription refill: none of which are exclusive to a particular
process, all of which are subjectively inconvenient to some degree, and at
least one of which is accessible to the visually impaired.

> There is also the question of privacy. A blind person has no way of telling
> who is listening...

A blind person doesn't have to vocalize a single word to conceal privacy-
sensitive information and still effectively communicate at an open pharmacy
counter: fold a prepared (written, typed, whatever means favorable to the
blind) piece of paper containing sensitive information, pass said private
message to pharmacist when applicable. Paper not accessible? Try text on
mobile. Keypad not accessible? Try any speech-to-text mobile app. Mobile not
accessible? Try a phone call from your favorite secluded location. Common
sense for anyone who isn't mentally impaired and doesn't have a thinly veiled
legal agenda. There exists more than one way to achieve derivative privacy:
none of which are exclusive to a particular channel, all of which are
subjectively inconvenient to some degree, and at least one of which is
accessible to the visually impaired.

But I'm protecting my privacy under HIPPA, says Gil. If this claim were even
_remotely_ legitimate, pharmacy counters wouldn't have any semblance to
physically adjacent open check-out lines, and HIPPA would mandate it so, not
the ADA. Even if on some Twin Earth privacy in a deliberately open public
accommodation were a legitimate concern, it would impact _all in-store
customers without discrimination_...and since both normal and visually
impaired customers have alternative means of achieving the same benefit of
derivative privacy, no inherent disadvantage exists.

> And perhaps the onus is on you to stop making assumptions about the life of
> a blind person, and to read the court ruling in full...

The plaintiff describes his "inconveniences" in sufficient detail for me to
opine at will...no unfounded assumptions required. I _really don 't care_ what
is and isn't inconvenient to the visually impaired because the contention I
was initially remarking on was the court's decision of classifying Winn-
Dixie's website as _heavily integrated_...to which you've provided no relevant
argument against, and in which it appears you've lost complete sight of. This
discussion has clearly digressed to the point where nothing constructive may
come of it. Therefore, I submit privilege of the last word to you.

~~~
tchaffee
Sure, I'll take the last word. I'm confident I made a strong argument that the
website is heavily integrated to the physical locations. If the website were
purely informational, I agree you would have a strong argument. But the
website is transactional, and the website transactions entirely replace a set
of actions that would normally take place at the physical location. Would you
really characterize a transaction which I initiate on the web and then
complete in the physical store as _not_ integrated?

If you still can't see that, that's ok. Winn Dixie will fix their website
regardless of your curious position.

More importantly I'll add that you've been increasing patronizing and
condescending with _some_ of your remarks, and for your own sake, I hope you
don't talk to people like this when you are face to face. Your last two
replies come off as a cringe-worthy attempt to demonstrate intellectual
superiority ("look ma, how smart I am"), or perhaps a style of speaking
learned from debating club. Everything you said could have been said using
simpler words, fewer words, and it would have been clearer and easier to read.
If you do talk like this when you are no longer behind a computer screen, you
might see an significant increase in the quality of your relationships if you
tried hard to at least pretend that other people are your equals and deserve
respect when you speak to them.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what
you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” -- Maya Angelou

------
sbarre
I'm really sad to see so many people on HN arguing against the need for
enforceable (and not onerous if you look into it) accessibility standards on
the web.

A huge social benefit of the Internet is to connect everyone and make
information accessible to all.. It has changed our world for the better.

People with disabilities should not be excluded from this.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
>I'm really sad to see so many people on HN arguing against the need for
enforceable (and not onerous if you look into it) accessibility standards on
the web.

Someone decided that developers must comply with disability technologies, and
not have disability technologies built around the existing technologies. And
most developers had no argument in that battle. Now we have aria attributes
sitting inside of our HTML.

And most likely because businesses are going to push this down on their
existing developers, meaning they will need to devote time and energy learning
what ADA and the WCAG standards are and figure out accessibility testing while
maintaining all of their previous responsibilities.

But really, we shouldn't need to do any of that.

We should have tools that allow us to comply to these standards with little
effort. We should have tools for the disabled that are as brilliant as Google
search. We should have testing frameworks that test our websites for this.

Why the hell are we spending money on suing companies instead of spending it
on research for curing disabilities? Where's my damn artificial eyes and ears
I was promised decades ago? All I got was this stupid lawsuit.

Is any of that being built for the next generations of developers who probably
get no accessibility training in college or dev bootcamps or internet
tutorials? Do businesses even send their devs to accessibility coding
conferences or workshops?

So I think many devs are justified at arguing against having to learn yet-
another-spec because someone else simply told them to. We already have enough
to learn with companies cramming laundry lists of technologies and ideologies
into their job postings. Accessibility will become another bullet point on
that list and we'll have Full Stack Javascript Accessibility Ninjas.

~~~
sbarre
Sounds like you've got it all figured out! Let me know when your unicorn comes
out of stealth mode.. /s

FYI we do have lots of tools and frameworks that make developing for
accessibility relatively straightforward.. But you have to want to do it, and
you have to know how to do it. This takes education and learning, but most
worthwhile things do.

Sayings things like "businesses are going to push it down on their existing
developers" is looking at this all wrong.

Developers should be building accessible websites in the first place.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
>Developers should be building accessible websites in the first place.

Sorry, we've got like ten other people telling us we need to "build websites
with <this> in first place". Accessibility is just another line item at the
same point as security, scalability, and resilience.

And for what it's worth, I would prioritize security over accessibility any
day of the week.

It's very easy of you to ask all developers to design websites with
accessibility in mind. To push all of these requirements onto someone else.

But keep piling on responsibility onto your devs and watch how they build
everything in mediocrity because you don't give them time to become good at
anything.

The field is utter chaos.

~~~
technojunkie
Very often, if not almost always, there is no competition between security and
accessibility. I'm not sure how you get this impression. The two can also go
hand in hand, building features that render server-side with security in mind
in addition to the existing client-side functionality.

------
technojunkie
This is what happens when an industry purposely ignores making websites
accessible and more importantly ignoring principles of progressive
enhancement. This is the first of many lawsuits to come, I fear.

I hope the web development industry will self-correct itself and get serious
about a11y principles in websites before laws get made that convolute what web
developers do best.

------
Keverw
60 mins did a segment about this a while back.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xjq9xWnwT0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xjq9xWnwT0)

ABC15 Arizona also did a story
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D60we_4VZGY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D60we_4VZGY)

Another interesting thing is building inspectors that work for the city, don't
care about ADA only city codes from my understanding. I never dealt with them,
but after watching this segment I can see violations all over when I go
places. Like ADA is 20 years old and my city doesn't even have curb cuts for
wheelchairs. Plus some small towns websites have bad low contrast or horrible
fonts. I also think some flat UI designs are really horrible to tell things
apart.

Sad thing, some of these lawyers doing this only cares about making money, and
not actually helping accessibility.

There's a bill in Congress H.R.620 \- [https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-
congress/house-bill/620](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-
bill/620) that is meant to reform this. Basically you'd write a written
complaint to the business, Then the business gets 60 days to reply outlining
how they will improve it. Then 120 days to actually fix it. You can't just go
out right suing, they get a chance to correct it. If they aren't correct it,
then you get to sue. Seems fair to both the business owners, and
accessibility.

There was one case I remember when watching related videos before, that
someone had to pay a lawyer 5K and all the work they had to do is move the
soap dispenser. Something the business owner himself was able to do with a
screwdriver and 15 mins. Then someone else had to pay 5K over missing a $50
sign, another quick fix. I guess if H.R.620 was the law, with those really
small changes they could just fix it right away and reply saying they already
fixed it outlining how.

On the side note, making captions helps SEO find your video, and powers the
transcripts. Sometimes watching a long presentation like a hour long, later
I'll be working on somthing and remember hearing about the problem before...
So I'll look up the video, go to transcripts and ctrl-f. I was listening to a
podcast on a walk one day, and wanting to write down some notes when I got
home of some points that interested me... But no transcript, so I'd have to go
back and listen to find it again...

However, somethings I think might be impossible to make accessible like
complex applications for 3D Virtual worlds, 3D Modeling, Camara filters, Photo
editing.

Also wonder how this would apply to user generated content. Should Facebook or
YouTube or the uploader be sued for some random vlogger not captioning a
video, or some individual live streaming from their phone? I'd surely hope
there'd be exemptions for those websites, probably Section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act would cover that case. However if a business
uploaded a video to YouTube, then that business should caption it for sure.
However, I hope lawyers don't start going after individual YouTubers... Didn't
caption that video of your family at the theme park? $5,000 demand letter!
That would get ridiculous if lawyers ever attempted to do that.

~~~
wbl
Maybe the business owner could have bothered to read the law and come into
compliance without needing the lawsuit. This law is not a surprise.

~~~
Keverw
Who knows, maybe they bought a existing building and didn't build it in the
first place. If it's a new building, I'd hope the architect they hired was
aware of this stuff.

But these lawyers create 1000s of lawsuits. They are the offline equivalent of
patent and copyright trolls. Send out a bunch of letters, scare a business
owner and make a quick buck. Most of the time they never even go to court. The
lawyers just care about making quick bucks, they could care less about
accessibility.

A judge threw out 1,000+ lawsuits of a lawyer doing this before.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0dJ06AHwOI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0dJ06AHwOI)

I rather see correction than punishment. Things like this is just a turn off
to starting businesses, and letting megacorps who can hire a army of lawyers
take over the planet. I think if business owners are doing their best with
their resources, if they mess up, give them time to correct it. Instead of
paying lawyers thousands and thousands, they can spend that money instead on
fixing the issue - and sometimes the fixes are basically free like moving a
soap dispenser.

Florida lawmakers are trying to stop drive by lawsuits.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYn36DSDJng](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYn36DSDJng)

But I really hope H.R.620 passes so it's applied to all 50 states federally. I
think it's fair to both the disabled and the business owners. In the end, the
only thing should matter is that things are fixed and made accessibly - not
lining lawyers pockets.

Wow [https://youtu.be/hEQPUJjIdAc](https://youtu.be/hEQPUJjIdAc) this one
lawyer just wanted money and didn't even want proof it got fixed. Thankfully
the restaurant owner found another lawyer willing to fight the other lawyer
pro bono and won! Also this video at the end explains H.R.620

