@frgough
I have a disability (RRMS), and I must admit that I get kind of annoyed at able-bodied people getting offended over some disability issues on my behalf; frankly, it's patronising, but I get even more offended at a-holes who think like you do! I have to fit pretty much every aspect of my life around you. It's not my fault I contracted Multiple Sclerosis! Why shouldn't a blind or partially sighted person be able to access content? The web should be accessible for all. For the most part the tools do this are there and HTML5/CSS3, along with other technologies like WAI-ARIA, are giving us even better tools to do this with. A designer and/or developer should be making sure that their code is semantically structured and validates as a matter of course (HTML5 does validate now). Here's where I do agree; legislating for accessibility in this way is the bleeding-hearts passing a law that makes them feel good about themselves as it doesn't really help anyone. It doesn't need to be mandated in law at all. For a start, the Web is a global thing, so how do the US Government police it? What if a company hosts their site in a country that doesn't have the proposed legislation? Accessibility needs to be taught as the only way to design and develop web sites and apps. Period. Enforcing the W3C standards with ISO/ANSI/BSi/DIN/NF style standards is a better way forward. Getting browsers to validate pages an flag sites and apps that are not accessible would be another option too, essentially shaming bad content producers into changing their ways!
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