The third Accessible Cyberspace Forum meeting took place at the office of the Ombudsman for Civil Rights at al. Solidarności in Warsaw. Read the whole article “Utilitia at the Accessible Cyberspace Forum” →
Problems of the disabled
According to various statistics, there are from 13 to 15% disabled citizens in Europe. They suffer from numerous disabilities and experience them in diverse ways. Differences between them are huge but they have one conviction in common. They want to be treated equally to healthy citizens.
Unfortunately, examples of discrimination are far from rare. One of the most widespread examples is Web inaccessibility. Some websites make it impossible for the disabled to take advantage of Internet resources.
Eyesight dysfunctions
Blind and visually impaired people use computers with screen reading software and magnifying applications in their everyday work. Screen readers interpret the content of the screen and send it to the speech synthesiser or a Braille display. Magnifying applications enlarge a selected fragment of the screen upon the request of the user. All programmes used to navigate in websites precisely require the proper construction of a web page.
Intellectual disabilities
Mentally challenged people have problems acquiring complicated and complex content. They need the text published on web pages to be formulated in a simple and accessible manner. Sentences should not be long or contain multiple clauses. Vocabulary should be as simple as possible.
Hearing disorders
Hearing impaired people have two kinds of problems. Some problems are connected with differences between the syntax functioning in sign language and the construction of the language used in writing and in colloquial speech. Difficult, complicated language efficiently restricts hearing impaired individuals from the content available on the Internet. The second kind of problems refers to multimedia presentation of the website content. If the message is limited to sounds only, it is inaccessible to a deaf person. The deaf-blind also encounter a range of problems that affect people with eyesight dysfunctions.
Physical limitations
Physical limitations are most frequently connected with various dysfunctions of legs. People with this kind of disability are forced to use specialist indication devices adjusted to their disability. The most frequent problems faced by people with physical limitations involve the restricted reaction time, the lack of possibility of choosing options allocated to the mouse only from the keyboard level or illogical forms available on web pages.