During 2008, public interest attorneys representing the American Council of the Blind (ACB), the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), the California Council of the Blind (CCB), and the Bay State Council of the Blind (BSCB) used structured negotiation to establish a settlement agreement with the publicly traded office supply company Staples.

Under the settlement, Staples agreed to install tactile point of sale devices at all of its California stores by December 31, 2009, and in all of the rest of its stores nationwide by no later than April 30, 2010. The tactile POS machines have tactile keys arranged like a standard telephone keypad, and allow blind and visually impaired customers to independently enter PINs and other confidential information when purchasing products at Staples stores. Under the Settlement Agreement, Staples will also upgrade its commercial web site by no later than June 30, 2009 to make it compliant with Priorities 1 and 2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) promulgated by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium.

Because there is no record of any disputes between the parties regarding compliance with the agreement, it appears that Staples satisfied its obligations by April 30, 2010.

Kristen Sagar - 05/11/2009
Hope Brinn


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