Because of my association with the College of Design, I've been invited to attend a lunch with Ted Johnson of Microsoft. He is currently a "graphics architect" on the Internet Explorer team; back in the 80s, he developed PageMaker. PageMaker is one of the things that brought me into design; Internet Explorer has come close to driving me away.

To quote the invite,

Ted's job is to figure out what Microsoft should do in the area of web-standard graphics support for the next version of Internet Explorer.

He is particularly interested in exploring how design tools and/or browser capabilities constrain or otherwise impact web design solutions, and is looking forward to a discussion of the "future of graphics on the internet".

As a web designer who spends an inordinate amount of time trying to get things to behave in Internet Explorer, such an invitation makes it tempting to bring a bag of rotten tomatoes to lunch. On the other hand, this is probably supposed to be civil, so if you have any suggestions or requests, please share them with me, as it appears that I cannot invite other people to join me.

A $6 million settlement was announced yesterday— perhaps this signals an era where more attention will be paid to web accessibility?

Related link:

• NYTimes article

Or, maybe that's just a lot of light streaming in through the windows?

A photo of the planning committee, taken at the end of MinneWebCon, yesterday's incredibly-successful University of Minnesota web conference.

From left to right: Eric Eklund, me, Eric Meyer (our morning keynote presenter), Zach Johnson, Peter Fleck, and Dan Kunitz. On the committee, but not in the photo: Sara Hurley, Jesse Mullan, and Simin Hickman.

The most significant case to directly address this issue in court is National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corporation (2006 and 2007). However, the case has not yet been heard by the court, so only the initial arguments, subsequent decisions not to dismiss the case, and relevant commentary on these initial stages of the suit are available for review.

I will review the Target case as it currently stands, the 1990 ADA legislation (and related 1994 Title III regulations), related pre-Target cases, and relevant law and technology journal articles to discuss the overall background of Web accessibility. This includes the Unruh Civil Rights Act (CA), which has also been cited in some cases.

In doing this research, I plan to explore the following questions:

1. How have courts and legal analysts interpreted the ADA and its guidelines to address Internet communications?
2. Is the existing analysis comprehensive and reasonable, or are there areas where the analysis has either been incomplete, misguided, or misconstrued?
3. How, specifically, have courts and legal analysts interpreted the ADA in respect to assistive Web technologies and best practices for accessible Web design?
4. Based on what I know already and subsequently discover in further reading, how would I recommend that the court proceed with Target?
5. How do these items relate to liability for Web designers?
6. What are some practical best practices for Web designers to embrace, based on the findings of this legal research and analysis?

Download complete proposal with current bibliography.

Aside from my MFA thesis project, this was my most involved and best-developed project from graduate school (2001-2004). I am reposting it in observation of the 5th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Note that total soldier and civilian casualty estimates now range from a conservative 34,000 (President Bush's estimate) to more than 650,000 (based on a 2006 epidemiological study that also includes deaths due to disease and other non-military violence resulting from war).

On the other hand, there are stories of hope, such as this NPR story that documents a less violent area of Iraq that had formerly been known for unthinkable atrocities.

We can only hope that more stories of hope like this emerge over time, to ensure that all of the war-related deaths did not happen in vain. But with 34,000-650,000 deaths to assuage, it's difficult to imagine there ever being enough hope or success.

• Play video (note: adjust your speaker volume accordingly).
• Original project posting