[gui-talk] Unable to Access Target.com

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Gerald Levy <bwaylimited at verizon.net> wrote:
> It should not matter which browser you use to access the Target site.

You can argue it would be better to warn the user, but then allow them
to continue with a broken experience. I can understand how sites that
take people's money such as retailers might be wary of that.

> This
> violates the principle of universal access.  Does Microsoft restrict access
> to its site if you are using a browser other than IE?

Microsoft sometimes does block access on the basis of detected user
agent. For example, at some point IE5 Mac users were blocked from
signing into to Hotmail (not sure what the current status of that is).

> Does
> any other retailer restrict access to its site based on the browser you are
> using?  None that I know of.

It's apparently not uncommon for banks to prevent logons on this
basis, citing security concerns.

> Only Target seems to be engaging in this practice.

My impression is it's less common to block access to unsupported
browsers these days. I don't think Target is alone here.

> So while they may not be in violation of their settlement with
> the NFB, they still don't take accessibility very seriously.

Conflating universal access to legacy user agents with access for
people with disabilities is a category error, although the two are
sometimes related in practice.

See also the concept of "accessibility-supported" technology in WCAG2:

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/#accessibility-supporteddef

> I have seen
> complaints on other blind-related lists about the difficulty of navigating
> their site, so although it may now be accessible to blind consumers, it is
> certainly not blind friendly by any stretch.

Their site may well have problems that are clearly issues of access to
people with disabilities; however, the general principle of blocking
access to legacy user agents and the particular bug of misidentifying
user agents is not one, IMHO.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis