lynx-dev NEWS: A call to arms in court

[Larry W. Virden]

   Posted at 6:34 a.m. PST Thursday, November 12, 1998 
   
Blind man wants better cyberspace access

   SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A blind man says his inability to access Web
   sites violates the Americans With Disabilities Act.
   
   Randy Tamez, who was blinded 12 years ago by treatment for a brain
   tumor, has filed a formal complaint against the Metropolitan
   Transportation Commission. The commission oversees nine Bay Area
   counties' mass transit systems.
   
   Tamez, 36, who sees only shapes, shadows and light, says his inability
   to access the site's documents, including bus and train schedules,
   violates the Americans With Disabilities Act, passed by Congress in
   1990. It's one of the first formal complaints filed against a Web
   site, according to Cynthia Waddell, the city of San Jose's ADA
   coordinator.
   
   As more and more sensory impaired users go on-line, the more barriers
   they find in front of them, the biggest of which is the World Wide
   Web.
   
   And as Web sites fill with pictures, video clips and sound, text
   becomes a secondary concern to on-line designers. But text drives the
   technology, especially screen readers, that allows a sight- or
   hearing-disabled person to use the Web.
   
   ``The on-line world was friendly when it was a text-based medium,''
   said Waddell, San Jose ADA coordinator, who is deaf. ``But as it has
   rapidly grown to a robust multimedia environment, it has erected new
   barriers that were never there before.''
   
   Tamez's recently filed a complaint against the MTC as part of a
   growing mound of paperwork that is steering ADA regulations toward the
   Web.
   
   Two other formal complaints, filed against San Francisco and
   Washington this year, allege those cities failed to make public
   touch-screen computer kiosks compliant with hearing- and
   vision-impaired users. Both cities have promised to enact guidelines
   and training to bring the kiosks in compliance with the ADA.
   
-- 
Larry W. Virden                 <URL:mailto:address@hidden>
<URL:http://www.purl.org/NET/lvirden/> <*> O- "No one is what he seems."
Unless explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing in this posting should 
be construed as representing my employer's opinions.