Differing preferences

[Inspire]

Sadly also most clients and even employers of mine don't even know of the existence of any accessibility laws (but then I am in Australia, and there aren't any specific laws here yet).

Surely in Australia you are aware of the SOCOG ruling in 1999? A visually impaired person successuflly sued the Sydney Olympic Committee, forcing them to re-design the olypic web-site - 1000's of separate pages. This was quite high profile and even featured here in the UK. I hate to argue, but Australia does have a DDA and the use of the DDA and its existing texts formed most of Maguire's (the blind person) argument.

You comments about the bus company equals the unfortunate reality. It is cases like that that get peoples backs up and less enthusiastic about helping the minorities.

[Daz]

Yes there has to be a happy medium, at the end of the day if the web is the only method of accessing information then I think that company needs to look at it's practices. For example a company could have it's organisation chart on their site in graphic form and not have any description for blind users. However, I think it is perfectly acceptable to provide them with contact details for obtaining a braille descriptive version on request. That way there's no silly scenario of a company wasting time to come up with an electronic version for the site. Maybe not the best example but you get my drift I hope!

[redux]

A visually impaired person successuflly sued the Sydney Olympic Committee, forcing them to re-design the olypic web-site - 1000's of separate pages.

actually, i believe that information is incorrect. as far as i know, Maguire lodged a complaint against SOCOG. SOCOG could have decided to redesign their site as that point, to meet accessibility requirements, but - after weighing up the cost of retrofitting their site, and the expected "life span" of the site itself - decided that it would be more cost-effective for them to simply pay the $20.000 fine. their site was, i believe, never redesigned.
this, however, highlights an interesting (and often overlooked) fact: if your site is not accessible, it does not automatically mean that you'll get sued for millions out of the blue. the most likely course of action will be that somebody (individual, organisation, whatever) will file a complaint and you will be given the option to make the reasonable adjustments required. SOCOG made a conscious decision not to rework their site and therefore had to pay the fine.

[Inspire]

Redux, Yeah, you are right - just had a look at the document a little more closely (found here. But this still highlights the legal implications for web-sites whether SOCOG complied or not.

An interesting scenario would be if you were running a gaming site which had a couple of thousand regsitered members but only a few hundred regular members. Say that this site is being run out of your own free time as a hobby and a disabled person files a complaint because he can't access it.

If you just can't comply due to time or money constraints you are going to faced with the possibility of a fine. Why should you pull the plug on something you are doing for fun?

[redux]

If you just can't comply due to time or money constraints you are going to faced with the possibility of a fine. Why should you pull the plug on something you are doing for fun?

again, a site like the one you describe would most likely not come under the DDA's remit (discrimination by employers, provision of goods, facilities and services, education and public transport). ok, it could be argued that you're providing a service, but i do believe it's stretching it a little. sure, if the worst came to the worst this "could" go to trial...but i would posit that it would get dismissed pretty quickly. the DDA aims, in my view anyway, at eradicating institutional discrimination, and is not set in place to get at individual hobbyists...(but then again, i'm no lawyer )

[pissant]

The bus example is an extreme, the action group were unwilling to be flexible, and they were backed up by the courts. This ended up costing the average consumer quite a bit.
Sure the bus company should have been visionary and forward thinking in the first place. But my point was to illustrate just how fluffy "reasonable" can be, and how that can end up hurting the general public.
As an addendum the reason I was thinki9ng about this was that an old friend just completed a study in wellington which said that disabled commuters didn't use the buses anyway, the continued to use the limited minivan service that the bus company had always offered.

[pissant]

Surely in Australia you are aware of the SOCOG ruling in 1999? A visually impaired person successuflly sued the Sydney Olympic Committee, forcing them to re-design the olypic web-site - 1000's of separate pages. This was quite high profile and even featured here in the UK. I hate to argue, but Australia does have a DDA and the use of the DDA and its existing texts formed most of Maguire's (the blind person) argument.

You comments about the bus company equals the unfortunate reality. It is cases like that that get peoples backs up and less enthusiastic about helping the minorities.

funnily enough I was working in London in '99
I've only been here for a few months
All the info I have read previous on the socog case said that it was an unusual case which couldn't be used as a precedent in disability and access legals...
This morning I read one analysis which was very different, so now I'm not sure!
I have read the Aus laws though and they don't specifiy electronic mediums (or at least the versions I read didn't). hmmm is interesting...
Whereas in USA, UK and NZ I have seen laws be more specific.