Jeff Mulkern was wandering through Target.com, searching for laundry soap, when he heard a problem.

"Nav slash spacer 342 million 753 thousand 723," said the computer voice of the screen reading software that the Shaler resident, who is blind, was using to navigate the online shop.

It is just as possible to run into technical problems while listening to a Web store as it is looking at one.

Making online shopping accessible to those who are blind or visually impaired has popped into prominence as a result of a lawsuit alleging Minnesota discount retailer Target didn't do enough with its Web site. Last fall, a California judge granted the case class-action status. Target denied the allegations, but the case could shed light on whether Web sites have obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

No matter how the legal situation ends, it has raised awareness, said John Pare, executive director for strategic initiatives at the National Federation for the Blind, which filed the lawsuit. In recent months, he said dozens of companies have contacted the organization for information.

Improving shopping accessibility also has been on the to-do list of the American Foundation for the Blind, which last month was part of Camp Hill, Cumberland County-based drugstore chain Rite Aid's announcement that it planned to both make its Web site more accessible and to add new point-of-sale equipment with tactile keypads in its stores.

The two organizations don't agree on everything -- they have different opinions about recent challenges over the design of U.S. currency, for example -- but both see Web accessibility as important to the communities they serve. "The Internet is becoming more integrated into everyday living," said Mr. Pare.

With so much merchandise available over the Internet, some claim online shopping makes it much easier for the blind to independently check out the options for music, clothes or other items and then order what they want.

"All of a sudden, you've got all of this opportunity at your fingertips," said Paul Schroeder, vice president, programs and policy group of the American Foundation for the Blind.

And, at this point, most Web sites are at least partially accessible. Screen reading software, such as the Jaws program made by Freedom Scientific, reads aloud the tags and text that are naturally placed on the screen in its creation, as well as identifying whether something is a link to another page or perhaps an edit box that allows the customer to type in information.

Yet it is frustrating when a glitch throws up roadblocks. Common problems include sites that use pictures or graphics without describing what is shown. Then there are the unlabeled or oddly labeled buttons like the one that Mr. Mulkern ran into at Target.com.

Mr. Schroeder noted a planned purchase might be abandoned if a shopper can't find the checkout button. "A lot of the things that make a Web site accessible are just good design elements for anybody," he said. Clean designs and good labels can help shoppers on mobile phones or using slow dial-up connections, too.

The American Foundation for the Blind estimates about 1.3 million Americans are legally blind, while a total of 10 million are either blind or visually impaired. Those numbers could grow as baby boomers age.

Online merchants may never realize some of their customers are blind. Screen-reading software is installed on a customer's computer, so the store doesn't know its text is being read audibly.

Awareness of those consumers can be an advantage because it's easier to make a site accessible when starting from scratch. At the Legal Sea Foods restaurant chain in Boston, an employee who happened to be blind brought up the issue at a moment when everything was being redesigned.

"Until he stopped me, I had no idea about any of these subjects whatsoever," said Ken Chaisson, vice president of information technology. Now the chain, which has had nonvisual accessibility Web certification from the National Federation of the Blind since 2005, uses software that checks the site daily to see if any changes have introduced problems.

Relatively few sites have NFB certification, which has been a low-key effort. The organization decided this spring to push that service a bit more. Officials from both advocacy groups agreed there are plenty of businesses and consultants ready to offer advice on making sites accessible.

Rite Aid has been working on its site for several months, said spokeswoman Cheryl Slavinsky. Eventually there should even be a photo editing page set up specifically to help the visually impaired. Still, there's a lot of information packed on the drugstore chain's Web site, and she predicted it could take a while to achieve the goal of making it completely accessible.