Hotels.com is being sued by two Californian women because they could not ensure rooms booked via the website were wheelchair-accessible. The lawsuit claims that Hotels.com breaks the state’s civil rights laws, its Disabled Persons Act and its Unfair Competition Law.

The problem stems from site visitors offered disabled-access rooms as an option that it cannot guarantee ahead of the person’s arrival at the hotel. As e-consultancy points out, the US’s equivalent of the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act does not class websites as public accommodations, which are required to be accessible to disabled users.

On a related note, for anyone interested in reading material on accessibilty I can recommend the book ‘Constructing Accessible Web Sites‘ - it’s a few years old now but a good reference and introduction to the legal, business, ethical and technical aspects of accessible design.

It looks to have been significantly revised in 2006 and renamed ‘Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance‘.

I read on BBC news this morning that Jakob Nielsen believes the essentials of good design are being overlooked through the eagerness of web firms to implement Web 2.0 technologies.

I alluded to this in my comment in a recent post regarding the recently launched boo.com and that I felt the implementation of certain AJAX functionality had detracted from the user experience. Mr Nielsen also comments “They should get the basics right first,” and “Sadly most websites do not have those primary things right.”

Funnily enough, although, not particularly suprising, the writer cites a reference to the original boo.com regarding Mr. Nielsen’s warning of a return to the dotcom boom days, as an example of a site that looked great but was not easy to use.

AJAX is a development method for creating interactive web applications and can lead to more reactive browsing and contextual content. The prime examples are the multitude of flight fare aggregators that use AJAX to provide a fast user experience when sorting through flights without the browser reloading.

Implemented well and the enhanced user experience may well be a factor in a site visitor switching loyalty to a different travel company, however, it is important not to lose sight of the principles of usability design.

According to research by Continental Research, the UK is the top destination for internet users when planning their holidays and it is estimated that 17 million people will book part or all of their holiday online. The poll also outlined the importance of tourist board websites in providing value to visitors. It is going to be interesting to see how these sites evolve in the face of social networking sites. Tourist boards and Destination marketing organisations do have advantages over other sites, such as a high level of public trust and that they act as a first base for consumers before they look into specific tourism services. [Read more →]