Retailer Target's refusal to make its Web site more accessible to the blind has fueled a high-profile court battle that is causing many companies to quietly upgrade their Web sites in the hopes of avoiding negative publicity and legal liability.

The case will unfold over the next several months, but a federal judge has already dismissed Target’s claim that Americans with Disabilities Act prohibitions against discrimination do not apply to commercial Web sites.

This ruling, and other advocacy efforts on behalf of the blind, has caused a number of “major e-tailers” to upgrade their sites to make them compatible with software the blind use to access the Internet, says Paul Rosenfeld, senior vice president of federal accessibility solutions at the SSB BART Group in San Francisco, a consulting firm founded by technologists with disabilities.

These online retailers contacted SSB BART to assist in that upgrade, but Rosenfeld says he can’t identify the companies because they wish to remain anonymous.

“This Target case, it’s been a wake-up call for e-tailers,” Rosenfeld says.

Before the case, advocacy groups for the blind would often ask companies to upgrade their Web sites and not receive immediate results, he says. Retailers typically don’t make those upgrades right away “unless there’s litigious action or some need for risk management,” he says.

There are 1.3 million legally blind Americans, and nearly 9 million more who are visually impaired, according to the American Foundation for the Blind.

Click to see: A Web site as a sighted user sees it.

Blind people access the Internet with keyboards used in conjunction with screen-reading software, such as JAWS for Windows, which read aloud text, and descriptions of pictures and other images. The descriptions are known as alt-text (alternative text), invisible code embedded beneath graphical images.

Click to see: A Web site without accessibility features as a blind person experiences it.

These text equivalents must be written by Web site designers when they put images online, or blind people will not be given a vocalized description of the picture.

Click to see: A Web site with accessibility features as a blind person reads it.

Targeting Target

A class action lawsuit filed by the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) accused Target.com of lacking alt-text for many graphics, preventing blind customers from browsing products and looking for Target locations.

Moreover, Target.com requires that all transactions be performed with a mouse, the NFB said, a barrier that prevents blind people from purchasing products online. While a blind person can use a keyboard, just as a sighted person can type without looking at the keys, a blind person cannot use a mouse because it requires the ability to see the mouse cursor on the screen. Accessible Web design allows the blind to navigate sites using just Tab, Shift-Tab, and Enter.