Accessibility 101 Defining Disabilities

I am still amazed when I talk to people about accessibility on the web and their response is typically "Blind people can surf the web?" This says two things. People think of only blind people when discussing accessibility, and second being people assume that if a person has a disability that they should not be using the web. This can't be further from the truth. Because this ignorance still exists, and I still encounter it I thought I would go back and write an accessibility 101 article.

Defining Accessibility

Accessibility in general is used to describe the degree to which a system is usable by as many people as possible. Accessibility is often used to focus on people with disabilities and their right of access to entities, often through use of assistive technology. [wikipedia]

For some people this might be new information, so lets talk about a few types of users that this might apply to. As you will see, there is much more to consider when talking about accessibly.

Visual Disabilities: Users with low vision or no vision. The most commonly discussed impairment is 100% blind, as that is what most people think of as they access websites through assistive technology like screen readers. However other visually impaired users might need access to high contrast versions of your site, or be given the ability to adjust the fonts to a larger size as necessary.

Cognitive Disabilities: One of the least understood accessibility impairments. This is huge group that is difficult to define. In loose terms, a person with a cognitive disability has greater difficulty with one or more types of mental tasks than the average person.

Motor Disabilities: Users with low to no motor skills or lack the physical dexterity to use common input devices like mouse and keyboard. Though more of a physical disablity, people with arthiritus, or carpel tunnel may suffer from motor disabilities too. They too may use screen readers, keyboard tabbing, or voice operated devices.

Auditory Disabilities: Because much of the web used to be silent many people don't think about people with auditory disabilities. Now and in the future, more content is being delivered as rich media in the form of audio and video files.

Technologically Disabled: Users that live in remote areas or cannot afford the luxury of a fast computer or high speed internet. Ha! My parents fall into this category! These users might have to surf with images or javascript turned off.

As you can see, there are may forms of disability not just blindness. You may even know people with with one of the above disabilities. Just because a user has a disability it's nieve to think that they are not capable of using the internet.