Beyonce’s Company Sued By Blind Woman Over Accessibility Issues

Parkwood Entertainment is being sued for a lack of accessibility.

One of the things that visually impaired people can enjoy in an equal manner to the sighted is music. Music does not demand any use of your eyesight, so granted you have full auditory ability, you can check out all the new music in the world. Unfortunately, a blind woman in New York is begging to differ after she filed a lawsuit against Beyoncé’s company, citing her website’s inaccessibility to visually impaired people as the reason.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mary Conner is suing Parkwood Entertainment, the company that runs Beyonce.com, because she does not have full access to the superstar’s website. In the documents, it is written that Conner has “no vision whatsoever” and that millions of other people with visual impairments are unable to fully navigate Beyoncé’s website without assistance from a sighted person.

Her attorney writes, “The one and only form of entertainment that truly presents an even playing field between the visually impaired and the sighted is the joy of music. Plaintiff dreams of attending a Beyonce concert and listening to her music in a live setting. However, when she browsed the Beyonce.com website, she encountered numerous barriers which limited her accessibility to the goods and services offered on the website.

Conner says that Beyonce.com is an “exclusive visual interface,” which limits her ability to navigate the site. “Web accessibility requires that alt-text be coded with each picture so that a screen-reader can speak the alternative text while sighted users see the picture. There are many important pictures on Beyonce.com that lack a text equivalent. As a result, Plaintiff and blind Beyonce.com customers are unable to determine what is on the website, browse the website or investigate and/or make purchases.”

THR states that representatives for Parkwood have not yet responded to the legal suit.