Target fights the wrong fight
Good evening! I'm Kerry J Harrison at the business desk and this evening I'd like to draw your attention to the Target fiasco. I am going to publish an article that I uncovered and I hope that after reading it most of you would be convinced not to go the Target way. Before presenting you with this well written piece, I'd like to make my own comments.
Target would do much better not to fight back and instead suck up the one time expense of making its website accessible. A failure to do so would only bring bad publicity and cause huge headaches and marketing nightmares for Target. Customers would definitely turn away from Target, Target would lose face, and if they don't fix their website now then they would eventually have to fix it anyway in light of further legislation that takes affect in 2010.
Whoever is advising the Target top brass had better take a long hard look at the advice they are dishing out and if other companies want to avoid this debacle then they had better learn real fast from this situation before it's too late. The special needs market is an explosive one with real demand that is ballooning, real consumers who are demanding more, and influential customers who are prepared to pay big bucks for the relevant services and products and at the same time they are not prepared to put up with nonsense re the Target situation.
On Handicapped Access, Target Fights the Wrong Fight for the Wrong Reason
Evan Schuman
PC Magazine, Sep 24, 2006 17:47:47 GMT
When a federal judge in California agreed that a lawsuit from the National
Federation for the Blind can proceed against Target, e-commerce executives
should have breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The lawsuit essentially argues that Target's online operation violated the
Americans with Disabilities Act because it is not designed to be easily
accessible to blind users.
Target's defense has been that the ADA does not explicitly talk about Web
sites, so, Target reasons, it's not covered.
That argument is wrong for so many reasons. For the moment, let's set aside
that the argument is wrong legally (the California judge already dealt with
that one). From Target's perspective, it's more relevant that the answer is
wrong from a marketing, customer service and an IT and design perspective.
The original intent of ADA was to allow consumers with physical handicaps
the same access to public places-including retailers-as the rest of the
public. The e-commerce sites of large retailers today are natural extensions
of their physical storefronts and the intent of the initial law clearly
should apply to Web sites.
What if Target took this argument to its next stage and decided that
discrimination laws and hate laws didn't apply to their Web site because
those federal laws-many of which were written long before today's Web was
prominent-didn't specifically mention them? Would it feel free to flout
those laws on its Web site by publishing racial slurs and hate-filled death
threats?
E-commerce is such an ingrained part of retail today that all physical
laws-where possible-must apply. But even if Target had a more sound defense
to this litigation, why in the world would it want to pursue it? Why is it
spending a mountain of legal dollars to justify keeping a large segment of
potential consumers from easily using its site? And it's doing so in a very
public manner.
Let's take a look at what is at play here. To make a large site such as
Target's accessible, it needs to add in text mouse-overs (alt-text) so that
screen readers can speak what images represent. But many highly designed
sites simply don't work without being able to see the images, so a more
radical redesign is often required.
Those more substantial redesigns can cost money, but it's not an obscene
amount. A site such as Target's would likely cost anywhere from $800,000 to
$2 million to make accessible. Although not pocket change, it's a one-time
expense that Target could easily absorb. Their legal costs in fighting
this-not to mention the loss of business from the associated bad
publicity-will surely be more. But ROI concerns are also not the real reason
for Target to not fight this.
The real reason to make those one-time changes is that it would result in a
more-efficient, faster and simply superior e-commerce site for all
consumers.
For years, retailers have gone for flash (as well as Flash) and multimedia
and arresting graphics with little regard to download time, increased
probability of programming glitches and incompatibilities. with multiple
OSes, different browsers, tons of updated add-ons, firewalls, spyware/pop-up
blockers and computer screen sizes, it's hard enough getting a design that
will work for all.
Add to this today's mobile demands (PDAs, smart phones) and site design is
going to find it more difficult to present one appearance to all. And yet,
having multiple versions of the identical site rarely makes sense, and it
certainly would be a nightmare for retailers with constantly changing stock
and prices. Maybe a car company could get away with it, but probably not.
The types of changes that the ADA is asking of retailers' Web sites
would-unintentionally-make
so much of that better. It can then be justified under the
marketing-friendly label of making the site more open to all.
The question of retail sensitivity to those without perfect vision is
nothing new. A wide range of recent stories have shown retailers being more
open to visually impaired consumers, from various and studies on
Terry Golesworthy is the CEO of a research firm called The Customer Respect
Group. (I probably should say that it's a group that apparently doesn't
include certain Target execs, but I'll be nice and not say that.)
Golesworthy's firm watches major retail sites and assesses how well they
handle consumer interaction issues, including site accessibility.
"I think Target
is just the unfortunate test case, but it is nowhere near the only company
to be at risk," he said.
"The clarity the case might bring to the area of accessibility means we
might see a lot of projects fired up for defensive reasons. The Y2K issue is
the closest thing we have seen recently that might be an analogy. "This is,
of course, smaller, but represents the same type of potential behavior with
executive management throwing money at a problem they really do not
understand but have a perceived business downside. This time, though, it's
for litigious and
PR reasons."
Agreeing with Golesworthy is veteran retail technology analyst Paula
Rosenblum, who today is a vice president with the Retail Systems Alert
Group.
"This lawsuit, assuming it is successful, is a double-edged sword. The
'beauty' of government mandates and singular events like Y2K is they drive
enterprises out of their short-term ROI mentalities," Rosenblum said.
"Complying with new regulations will either be a huge distraction for
retailers as they rush to comply with a government mandate, or will serve as
an opportunity to not just comply with the mandate, but take the opportunity
to clean up their online and cross-channel acts. This is long overdue."
In Golesworthy's latest study of the Web sites of the Fortune 100, his team
found that only 12 sites were "fine," 52 had "real problems" and 36 were in
the in-between "amber" stage, he said.
Target was among the 52 with "real problems," and Wal-Mart was in the amber
in-between zone.
For the record, the 12 whose sites were found to indeed be ADA-friendly were
three tech players (IBM, Microsoft and HP), three financial firms (Wells
Fargo, Bank of America and Washington Mutual), three manufacturers (Delphi,
Dow Chemicals and John Deere), one insurance company (Nationwide Mutual), a
pharmaceutical (Johnson & Johnson), and one lone retailer: Walgreens.
Golesworthy's advice to Target is to give up and salvage as much of this
mess as possible. "You basically fall on your sword and say, 'We're good
people. Really,'" he said.
Like all other corporate issues, this one resists being made neat and clean.
For example, consumers are not neatly split into sighted and non-sighted.
The visually impaired-which includes colorblindness-is potentially a much
bigger audience of lost consumers.
"Some companies like to use their corporate colors, which not necessarily
easy to read," Golesworthy said. But a complicated design is the biggest
problem. Even with mouse-over alt-text, a design that relies on tables and
formats will simply jump all over the place when the graphics are turned
off, making it very difficult to navigate, he said.
Another factor is the global market. The has mandated strict accessibility
rules for any retailer that wants to sell to Europeans. Those rules are
slated to take effect in 2010. For multinational retailers, "you're going to
have to do it eventually" so why fight it now, he asked. Why, indeed?
Evan Schuman is retail editor for Ziff Davis Internet's Enterprise Edit
group. He has tracked high-tech issues since 1987, has been opinionated long
before that and doesn't plan to stop anytime soon.
Check out eWEEK.com's for the latest news, views and analysis on
technology's impact on retail.
If you'd like to learn more about the influence, growth, demand, and potential of the special needs market then please read our book Untapped Wealth Discovered.
Evan Schuman
PC Magazine, Sep 24, 2006 17:47:47 GMT
When a federal judge in California agreed that a lawsuit from the National
Federation for the Blind can proceed against Target, e-commerce executives
should have breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The lawsuit essentially argues that Target's online operation violated the
Americans with Disabilities Act because it is not designed to be easily
accessible to blind users.
Target's defense has been that the ADA does not explicitly talk about Web
sites, so, Target reasons, it's not covered.
That argument is wrong for so many reasons. For the moment, let's set aside
that the argument is wrong legally (the California judge already dealt with
that one). From Target's perspective, it's more relevant that the answer is
wrong from a marketing, customer service and an IT and design perspective.
The original intent of ADA was to allow consumers with physical handicaps
the same access to public places-including retailers-as the rest of the
public. The e-commerce sites of large retailers today are natural extensions
of their physical storefronts and the intent of the initial law clearly
should apply to Web sites.
What if Target took this argument to its next stage and decided that
discrimination laws and hate laws didn't apply to their Web site because
those federal laws-many of which were written long before today's Web was
prominent-didn't specifically mention them? Would it feel free to flout
those laws on its Web site by publishing racial slurs and hate-filled death
threats?
E-commerce is such an ingrained part of retail today that all physical
laws-where possible-must apply. But even if Target had a more sound defense
to this litigation, why in the world would it want to pursue it? Why is it
spending a mountain of legal dollars to justify keeping a large segment of
potential consumers from easily using its site? And it's doing so in a very
public manner.
Let's take a look at what is at play here. To make a large site such as
Target's accessible, it needs to add in text mouse-overs (alt-text) so that
screen readers can speak what images represent. But many highly designed
sites simply don't work without being able to see the images, so a more
radical redesign is often required.
Those more substantial redesigns can cost money, but it's not an obscene
amount. A site such as Target's would likely cost anywhere from $800,000 to
$2 million to make accessible. Although not pocket change, it's a one-time
expense that Target could easily absorb. Their legal costs in fighting
this-not to mention the loss of business from the associated bad
publicity-will surely be more. But ROI concerns are also not the real reason
for Target to not fight this.
The real reason to make those one-time changes is that it would result in a
more-efficient, faster and simply superior e-commerce site for all
consumers.
For years, retailers have gone for flash (as well as Flash) and multimedia
and arresting graphics with little regard to download time, increased
probability of programming glitches and incompatibilities. with multiple
OSes, different browsers, tons of updated add-ons, firewalls, spyware/pop-up
blockers and computer screen sizes, it's hard enough getting a design that
will work for all.
Add to this today's mobile demands (PDAs, smart phones) and site design is
going to find it more difficult to present one appearance to all. And yet,
having multiple versions of the identical site rarely makes sense, and it
certainly would be a nightmare for retailers with constantly changing stock
and prices. Maybe a car company could get away with it, but probably not.
The types of changes that the ADA is asking of retailers' Web sites
would-unintentionally-make
so much of that better. It can then be justified under the
marketing-friendly label of making the site more open to all.
The question of retail sensitivity to those without perfect vision is
nothing new. A wide range of recent stories have shown retailers being more
open to visually impaired consumers, from various and studies on
Terry Golesworthy is the CEO of a research firm called The Customer Respect
Group. (I probably should say that it's a group that apparently doesn't
include certain Target execs, but I'll be nice and not say that.)
Golesworthy's firm watches major retail sites and assesses how well they
handle consumer interaction issues, including site accessibility.
"I think Target
is just the unfortunate test case, but it is nowhere near the only company
to be at risk," he said.
"The clarity the case might bring to the area of accessibility means we
might see a lot of projects fired up for defensive reasons. The Y2K issue is
the closest thing we have seen recently that might be an analogy. "This is,
of course, smaller, but represents the same type of potential behavior with
executive management throwing money at a problem they really do not
understand but have a perceived business downside. This time, though, it's
for litigious and
PR reasons."
Agreeing with Golesworthy is veteran retail technology analyst Paula
Rosenblum, who today is a vice president with the Retail Systems Alert
Group.
"This lawsuit, assuming it is successful, is a double-edged sword. The
'beauty' of government mandates and singular events like Y2K is they drive
enterprises out of their short-term ROI mentalities," Rosenblum said.
"Complying with new regulations will either be a huge distraction for
retailers as they rush to comply with a government mandate, or will serve as
an opportunity to not just comply with the mandate, but take the opportunity
to clean up their online and cross-channel acts. This is long overdue."
In Golesworthy's latest study of the Web sites of the Fortune 100, his team
found that only 12 sites were "fine," 52 had "real problems" and 36 were in
the in-between "amber" stage, he said.
Target was among the 52 with "real problems," and Wal-Mart was in the amber
in-between zone.
For the record, the 12 whose sites were found to indeed be ADA-friendly were
three tech players (IBM, Microsoft and HP), three financial firms (Wells
Fargo, Bank of America and Washington Mutual), three manufacturers (Delphi,
Dow Chemicals and John Deere), one insurance company (Nationwide Mutual), a
pharmaceutical (Johnson & Johnson), and one lone retailer: Walgreens.
Golesworthy's advice to Target is to give up and salvage as much of this
mess as possible. "You basically fall on your sword and say, 'We're good
people. Really,'" he said.
Like all other corporate issues, this one resists being made neat and clean.
For example, consumers are not neatly split into sighted and non-sighted.
The visually impaired-which includes colorblindness-is potentially a much
bigger audience of lost consumers.
"Some companies like to use their corporate colors, which not necessarily
easy to read," Golesworthy said. But a complicated design is the biggest
problem. Even with mouse-over alt-text, a design that relies on tables and
formats will simply jump all over the place when the graphics are turned
off, making it very difficult to navigate, he said.
Another factor is the global market. The has mandated strict accessibility
rules for any retailer that wants to sell to Europeans. Those rules are
slated to take effect in 2010. For multinational retailers, "you're going to
have to do it eventually" so why fight it now, he asked. Why, indeed?
Evan Schuman is retail editor for Ziff Davis Internet's Enterprise Edit
group. He has tracked high-tech issues since 1987, has been opinionated long
before that and doesn't plan to stop anytime soon.
Check out eWEEK.com's for the latest news, views and analysis on
technology's impact on retail.
If you'd like to learn more about the influence, growth, demand, and potential of the special needs market then please read our book Untapped Wealth Discovered.
Visit www.untappedwealth.com/order.htm to purchase a copy of this book.
Enjoy your evening.
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6:47 PM
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