I expect better of my governments [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

*grumble* Somebody refresh my memory -- does Section 508 of the ADA apply to state governments as well as the feds? 'Cause the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration web site just gave me a screen saying, "Unsupported Browser -- Sorry, this website was developed to work primarily with Netscape 6 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or higher. Use of any other browser may not give full features." (I'm using Opera 6) And that was after trying to cope with a bunch of links that don't take me anywhere because the HTML just links to "#" and they rely on Javascript (which I keep turned off) to set the actual destination.

I'm wondering whether, when I complain, I have a legal threat to wave at them, or just the wrath of an educated techie.

Anyhow, I've got an offer on the car from somebody who plans to take it apart and just use the motor ... I've been crawling through the MVA web site to find out whether this requires anything unusual in terms of paperwork, or whether I can just assign the title in the normal fashion.

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I'll ask

kestral to look at this.

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I give up. I have no idea who "genet" is, I typed "kestral".

Even more oddly, it showed up as <lj user="kestral"> in the notification email despite being "genet" here. And when I try to go to http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=kestral I get genet's userinfo page instead. Something cross-linked in the LJ database perhaps?

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Ah, well, it's spelt "Kestrell" in any event. I sent her email.

This would happen if "kestral" changed his user name to "genet".

Looks like it.

marnanel@pinkstuff:~$ wget -S http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=kestral
--23:39:49-- http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=kestral
=> `userinfo.bml?user=kestral'
Resolving www.livejournal.com... done.
Connecting to www.livejournal.com[66.150.15.150]:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...
1 HTTP/1.1 302 Found
2 Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 23:43:42 GMT
3 Server: Apache
4 Location: http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=genet
[...]

Check the site using Bobby Bobby checks pages for ADA accessibility compliance.

Assign the title.

Once it is their car, it is their problem.

Okay?

You just assign the title. It's up to the buyer to get a salvage title (instead of a general ownership title) when s/he fills out the application for a perfected title.

Check with Bobby, as someone else already suggested. I believe that state governments are bound by the ADA.

Beyond that, you're going to have to make a case for what disability, as opposed to preference, prevents you from using the web site. And they're probably covered if the same information can be gotten on paper (after all, not everyone has web access), and fooey on you if that's much less convenient. :-(

I don't think you can claim "avoidance of virus-prone software" (i.e. IE) as a disability.

Good luck!

Can you make a case that a user who was using a particular technology because of a disability would have run into the same problem? Or does it have to affect you directly?

For the purposes of trying to persuade them to do better by their customers, I suspect that an impersonal argument would be fine. I suspect, but do not know, that if you take a case to court, you won't do very well unless you can show that it personally affected you. Judges don't tend to like hypotheticals and matters of principle.

(Not a lawyer; not an ADA expert. Just someone who's been on the wrong end of unusable web sites due to a handicap...)

Right, the plan wasn't to threaten them with a lawsuit, merely to point out they were in non-compliance if the law actually applied to them, so as to lend more weight to my "you bozos really ought to know better" argument.

Oh, I've been meaning to ask: when I surround a paragraph or a parenthetical comment with <small></small> tags, does that cause a problem for you, or do whatever overrides you use in your browser take care of it properly? (I'd figured that was safer than trying to set a percentage-based font size, and I know better than to set an absolute size based on pixels or points.)

does that cause a problem for you, or do whatever overrides you use in your browser take care of it properly?

No, my browser handles it fine, thanks. The bane of my existence is stuff like <font size="2">...</font> , and too many people out there still don't understand why that's bad. But what you're doing works fine.

Email me with the url you are at, and the link you need to go to. I'll go, and give you the new url.

According to http://www.usability.gov/, Section 508 "Applies to all federal and federally funded Web sites."

Therefore, not state sites.

However, Maryland has its own state accessibility laws which all state sites must follow: http://www.mdtap.org/content/accesslaw.html.

Interestingly, I didn't get the message you cite when I tried the page with both Opera 6 and Opera 7. The page is slightly less viewable in Opera 6 with all images and scripting turned off, though.

And, yeah, check out what Bobby's two tests and the validator at Cynthia Says say about the site too: having specifics on hand can be, well, handy.

thanks. I was going to bring this up (despite being Canadian, I've worked for state (of Georgia) and federal (Centers for Disease Control), doing accessibility web development), but I scanned the answers first, just in case, and you'd taken care of it ;-)

I don't remember what click-path I took that led me to the "unsupported browser" message. I'll try to recreate it later.

Thanks for the pointer to the Maryland accessibility law, by the way.

I think section 508 only applies to Federal organizations, but that's no excuse. The MVA's very purpose for existing is to provide SERVICE TO THEIR CUSTOMERS, not turn customers away because they wanted to load the web site up with a lot of scripting toys. Disabling the web site to certain customers essentially CREATES disabilities, not accomodates them.

Man this really steams me...

Exactly. What's worse, part of what breaks things is real "go around the block to get next door" stuff. Why use two and a half lines of oddball Javascript cruft that breaks things to do the same job I can do with <a href="foo/bar.html">Button Name</a>??? It's not like it even adds any functionality; all it does is show that somebody knew how to do things the hard way!

Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I expect better of my governments

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ADA

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If privacy is't an issue, and you just _have_ to have the info...

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Links

January