[nabs-l] npr: Unfriendly Skies? Blind Passengers Sue United

[Justin Young]

It is my understanding by President Obama's signing into law the
Twenty-First Century Communication and Video Accessibility Act on
October 8, 2010 that all stuff like this should be accessible from now
on.  I don't recall the specific language of the bill because its been
awhile, but basically its another piece of legislation which works in
our favor.  Of course though it will take time to be put into action.
However as we all know the NFB has always been involved in matters
like this.  Equality reigns supreme!

On 11/2/10, Anjelina <anjelinac26 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope changes are made with airline accessibility as well as other
> inaccessible touch screen inconveniences we have to encounter on a daily
> basis.
>
> Here is the story and link for anyone interested in the NPR story.
> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130921227
>
> M. Spencer Green/AP
> A group of blind passengers is suing United Airlines, claiming that its
> check-in kiosks are inaccessible.
>
> text size A A A
> October 31, 2010 from KQED
> This week, a group of blind air travelers filed suit against United Airlines
> claiming that the airline's digital kiosks are inaccessible to blind people.
>
> It's not a problem that most travelers think about: How would they get
> through an airport without their eyesight? But something as simple as
> finding out your flight's gate can be a hassle.
>
> Mike May, who lives in Davis, Calif., says he has to ask someone to look for
> flight information on the big digital boards. And checking in using the
> now-ubiquitous electronic kiosks is an even bigger hassle, at least at many
> airlines.
>
> "There's no earphone jack, no audio output, no Braille output," says May,
> who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. So he often has to find a
> stranger with time to help, then hand over his credit card and other private
> information. "It's demeaning to have to ask, it's inconvenient, and it has
> an element of not being safe to have to depend on another person for that,"
> he says.
>
> Websites Inaccessible, Too
>
> In fact, the problems start even before they get to the airport, says
> Jonathan Lazar, who teaches computer science at Towson University in
> Maryland. Recently, Lazar took a close look at the websites of 10 leading
> airlines. He found that four of them, including United, are inaccessible to
> blind people; the sites are incompatible with the screen readers that blind
> people use to surf the Web.
>
>  Dec. 14, 2006
> Those airlines effectively force blind people to buy tickets by phone, "and
> more than one-third of the time, they ended up overcharging blind people.
> Either charging higher fares, or refusing to waive the call center fee, or
> both," Lazar says.
>
> Lazar says there's an easy solution: Design websites that blind people can
> use. American Airlines and Continental have already done that. So have eBay
> and Target. He says accessible and inaccessible websites look exactly the
> same. The difference is the way that the pages are coded, including labels
> for links and images.
>
> Auditory Guidance
>
> On an inaccessible website, a blind person using a screen reader might hear
> something like this: "Image ... image ... image" or
> "one-four-six-four-six-dot-jpg." Lazar calls it "basically garbled junk."
>
> On an accessible site, on the other hand, blind people hear descriptions
> that make sense to them.
>
> There are similar solutions for touch screens. The iPhone or iPad, for
> instance, can be used by a blind person after a quick change to the device's
> settings. Every time your finger touches something, the device tells you
> what it is. Touch the icon for Facebook, for example, and you hear an
> automated voice saying "Facebook."
>
> May says those examples show that designing devices with accessibility in
> mind is perfectly feasible. And while his lawsuit focuses on airline kiosks,
> they're really just an example of a bigger problem: electronic devices that
> he and others like him cannot use.
>
> "It would be so much easier to build in accessibility from the ground up,
> rather than have to retrofit them after the fact," he says. He says that
> technology can open doors for disabled people, He says that technology can
> open doors for disabled people, but poorly designed technology can also shut
> them out.
>
> Anjelina
> Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
> Albert Einstein
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Corey Cook" <ccook01 at knology.net>
> To: "'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'"
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 11:49 PM
> Subject: [nabs-l] npr
>
>
>> Did anyone hear the story on NPR avout accessibility for theBlind?
>> I thought it was well done!
>>
>> Corey Cook
>> Email
>> ccook01 at knology.net
>> Facebook
>> ccook01 at knology.net
>> Skype
>> coreym821
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>