A rough draft of the recommendations can be found on the consortium's Web site. But for businesses and government agencies, making sites accessible may not be voluntary, he said. In a policy ruling in September 1996, the Department of Justice said the Americans with Disabilities Act did cover access to Web pages. But blind users often have to let individual Web page authors know that they can't understand their pages. Sometimes people instantly go and fix it, and sometimes people don't care.
Blind users say they want basic instruction on how to navigate the Web and get what they want.
They do not need long descriptions that are intended to help them see pictures or other graphics. Related Sites Following are links to the external Web sites mentioned in this article. These sites are not part of The New York Times on the Web, and the Times has no control over their content or availability.