Craig’s List Fails to Provide Equal Access

The Craig’s List website has a major barrier for people with disabilities.  When posting an ad with a picture, adding Alt Text is not possible.  Click here to read what Web Standards legal opinion on accessibility is.

In 2006 Target’s was sued by the National Federation of the Blind.  The court ruled that their Web site was in effect an integral part of their business’ physical presence (“It appears from a review of the website in question—which the court notes is not in evidence but nonetheless does raise some questions—that Target treats Target.com as an extension of its stores, as part of its overall integrated merchandising efforts.”) and therefore must provide equal access to the blind by providing alt text on all images on every page of their Web site.  Target is now paying $6,000,000 damages to the members of the class action (legally blind people denied Target’s online services), and has agreed to remove accessibility barriers to blind users by February of 2009.

While it may seem like a lot of work to update a site to be in compliance with this California ruling, the fact is that such a law is of major benefit to any SEO who wants to plant more key-phrases on a page, and do so in such a way that Google cannot cry foul.   Legally requiring that a dozen or so thumbnail sized images with powerful and descriptive Alt Text on a Target Web page should have overjoyed them.

This brings up my point about Craig’s List.  Most business owners, whether they have a brick and mortise business or not, whether they are pure e-commerce or have a site totally independent of their physical address – when using Craig’s List are being provided a unique place to sell their services.  As such a person without sight visiting Craig’s List will click on ads based on what the text reader on that person’s computer reads from the printed site.

Many ads are placed on Craig’s List that have images and some of the ads are are nothing BUT an image.  While it is true that many of these picture ads are clickable, not all of them are.  The person without sight would not be able to read the ad and take equal advantage of an advertised opportunity unless Alt Text is added by the business or individual making the post.

Currently Craig’s List does not allow Alt Text to be added to posted images.  I have repeatedly tried to insert Alt Text to posted images without luck.