Fwd: AOL/Americans with Disabilities Act

From: Victoria Cross (VLCross@ucdavis.edu)
Date: Mon Jul 31 2000 - 10:57:47 PDT

  • Next message: Winifred Anderson: "Fwd: CIT INFOBITS -- July 2000 [in part]"

    Here is a news brief about AOL getting on board with the ADA requirements.

    If you want to find out if your course web page is ADA compatible,
    please call our local expert - Maureen Coulson at the Arbor:
    754-2115; macoulson@ucdavis.edu

    >>AOL TO ACCOMODATE BLIND WEB SURFERS
    >>CNET, July 27, 2000
    >>Entire article: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2358978.html
    >>Excerpt: BOSTON--To millions of Web surfers, America Online is an
    >>easy-to-use guide to the sometimes overwhelming Internet, but to the blind,
    >>AOL has been little more than a source of frustration. An agreement
    >>announced yesterday aims to change that. The National Federation of the
    >>Blind agreed to drop a lawsuit accusing AOL of violating the federal
    >>Americans with Disabilities Act. In return, AOL will make its software
    >>compatible with programs the blind use to convert digital information to
    >>speech or Braille. The pact could open the Internet to thousands of blind
    >>people who have been too intimidated--or exasperated---to use it, according
    >>to Curtis Chong, the federation's director of technology Under the
    >>agreement, coincidentally reached on the law's 10th anniversary, AOL will:
    >>* Adopt a companywide policy with guidelines for making AOL accessible to
    >>the blind and other people with disabilities. * Make the next version of
    >>its software accessible to the blind. AOL 6.0 is scheduled for release this
    >>fall. * Ensure that other future AOL products are accessible to the blind.
    >>The blind navigate the Internet with programs that read or describe text as
    >>a cursor hits it. But such programs currently can't read AOL's pages.



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