Christian Heilmann

Inaccessible by design – the dollar bill

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 4:41 pm

Interesting court case in terms of accessibility:

A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Treasury Department is violating the law by failing to design and issue currency that is readily distinguishable to blind and visually impaired people. Judge James Robertson, in a ruling on a suit by the American Council of the Blind, ordered the Treasury to devise a method to tell bills apart. The judge wrote that the current configuration of paper money violates the Rehabilitation Act’s guarantee of “meaningful access.”

As reported by CNN.

I welcome this decision, as Dollars always confused the heck out of me – all the same size and same colour. The question is now what will be changed and how much it’ll cost.

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