Editors of the Los Angeles Times analyze the decision by Target Corp. to settle an accessibility lawsuit brought by shoppers with visual impairments who weren’t able the retail giant’s website. It would have been cheaper for the company if it had designed the site properly in the first place, the editors say. An excerpt:

The problem is that, like Target, too many companies didn’t focus on accessibility when they made the leap into e-commerce. If they had, they would have found an underserved audience of disabled shoppers. A website can be a far more inviting place for a blind person than a crowded mall, if the site is designed the right way. And the number of vision-impaired Americans (at least 1.3 million are legally blind) is expected to grow as the population ages and the incidence of diabetes climbs. With more commerce and services moving to the Internet, it’s increasingly important that companies make accessibility a part of everything they do online. If that’s not clear in federal law, it should be.

Earlier post here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 7:59 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, accessibility, blindness/visual impairments, business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post