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In 1995 a new era of
accessibility for disabled people began. The Disability
Discrimination Act was passed, stating that:
“It is unlawful for a
service provider to discriminate against a disabled person
by refusing to provide any service which it provides to
members of the public.”
A website is regarded as a
service and the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the
Blind) and DRC (Disability Rights Commission) have been
quick to apply pressure on to organisations to push this
law into practice. Indeed, the DRC has now published its
formal investigation into 1000 websites (http://www.drc-gb.org/publicationsandreports/2.pdf).
So, how do disabled people
access the Internet? There are a number of different ways
depending on their particular disability:
Blind users
Internet users who have no
sight at all utilize a screen reader, which reads the
content of the web page, or rather the HTML (HyperText
Markup Language) code of the page, back to them. These
machines sift through the HTML code and the technology
deciphers what needs to be read aloud and what should be
ignored. IBM’s screen reader can be downloaded for a
free 30-day trial at http://www-3.ibm.com/able/solution_offerings/hpr.html.
Once you have downloaded it, go to your website, turn your
monitor off, and try to navigate your website.
Partial/poor sight
To take full advantage of
the Internet, users with partial or poor sight need to be
able to enlarge the text on web pages. To verify that your
website allows them to achieve this on Internet Explorer,
go to View > Font size > Largest. If your site is
accessible to this group of users then the size of the
text throughout the page will increase. Users with poor
vision can also use a screen magnifier. You can download a
free screen magnifier at http://www.magnifiers.org/links/Download_Software/Screen_Magnifiers/
and see for yourself.
Colour blindness
It is estimated that one in
12 men and one in 200 women have some form of colour
blindness (http://www.iee.org/Policy/Areas/Health/cvdintro.cfm).
You can check how Internet users with different strains of
colour blindness are viewing your website at http://www.tesspub.com/colours.html.
Deaf users
Deaf users are able to
access the Internet in much the same way as able-bodied
people with one key exception – audio content. If it is
a key function of your website for people to be able to
hear a message, then be sure to provide written
transcripts.
Keyboard/voice only users
Some of your site users do
not have access to a mouse when browsing the Internet. Try
putting yourself in their position by navigating your
website using only tab, shift-tab, and the return keys.
Other users
Other people who may access
your website that have disadvantages include:
- Epileptic users who must
always be careful to avoid seeing flickering between 2
and 55 Hz
- Web users from outside
your industry who may not understand industry jargon
or acronyms
- Web users whose first
language is not English and who may not be able to
comprehend complicated language
To really put yourself in
the position of one of these web users try out the DRC’s
inaccessible website demonstration at
www.drc-gb.org/open4all/newsroom/website6.asp.
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About
The Author
This
article was written by Trenton Moss. He's
crazy about web usability and
accessibility - so crazy that he went and
started his own web usability and
accessibility consultancy (Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk)
to help make the Internet a better place
for everyone. |
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