The US retailer Target has agreed to pay USD 6 million in damages to plaintiffs in California who are unable to use Target's website because it cannot be accessed using a screen-reader.

I first wrote about this case nearly two years ago 'Retailers need to become more accessible on-line' and again last October 'Three cheers for Target for fighting accessibility'.

I hate to say I told you so but in this case my predictions were correct:

• Target have had to pay damages. USD 6 million is not an insignificant amount off the bottom line during a down turn in the economy.
• Plus the legal expenses on both sides. Two years of attorneys fees must be significant. Unless Target are going to sue the attorneys for bad legal advice.
• Plus the direct and indirect costs of executive time which could have been better spent improving the profitability of the corporation.
• Plus the reputational loss of the executive team who made the decision to fight rather than cry 'mea culpa' and fix the problem.
• Plus the reputational loss of the company from bad publicity and lack of social responsibility.
• Plus the cost of fixing the website and being shown to have fixed it. Target have agreed to work in conjunction with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) to make the site more accessible by the end of February 2009. Six months is an aggressive time-scale and that will add to the cost compared to a phased improvement starting two years ago.
• Plus the loss of business benefits over the last two years that could have accrued to Target as they did to Legal and General (see Massive business case for accessibility) and there is a similar story relating to Tesco.

All of this just reconfirms what I said in my previous article:

'The messages to all e-commerce sites owners should now be clear:

• The laws on accessibility apply to your site.
• You would be brave, or more correctly foolhardy, to try and claim some special exemption, as you are likely to fail.
• The law is now clear and public so the courts will not be sympathetic to the plea 'I did not think it applied to my site' or even worse 'I did not know about the law'.

So how should e-commerce owners react?:

• Do not panic.
• Recognise that the principles apply to you even if you are not based, or market, in the US because most other jurisdictions now have relevant laws in this area
• Arrange an initial assessment of your sites to understand the size and scope of any problems. It is possible they may be small.
• Increase your awareness of accessibility and the related usability benefits. One simple way is to read my previous, and future, articles and blogs.
• Build accessibility into your requirements definition process.
• Create a realistic plan to move towards accessibility.

If you are seen to be actively working on accessibility neither the courts nor the accessibility advocates will wish to take action against you. They understand that moving to accessibility takes time and must be done in a cost effective and realistic fashion. They also recognise that there are other enterprises that they should chase as they are still not taking the issue seriously and need to be prodded to conform.

Since this case began the understanding of website accessibility has moved forward considerably. Creating accessible websites is now not difficult as long as it is built into the whole development cycle from initial inception through design, build, test, implementation and production. A good guide to this process is provided by PAS 78.

There are now no excuses just build a plan and do it.