People With Disabilities
And Accessible Web Issues

Practical, pragmatic Bobby approved designs help web-empower people with disabilities. Using the right approach to web accessibility will enhance any Internet experience.

On this page, we refer to "disability-related" issues and making web sites - or anything having to do with the Internet - as accessible as possible for disabled people.

For example, for those with a vision disability we make sure that all text is in readable fonts, that there are no color clashes, that ALT tags are properly done, and so on.

This topic is further broken down as follows:

• Vision-Related Issues
  "Vision-related" refers to any sort of vision disability - poor vision, color-blindness, complete blindness. For people who have a vision disability we make sure that text is in readable fonts, there are no color clashes, ALT tags are properly done, and so on.
  
  
• Non-Vision-Related Issues
  "Non-vision-related" refers to any disability other than vision. For someone with a mobility problem, we make appropriate easy navigations, and so on.

Serving People With Disabilities

Disabled parking is now commonplace.

As time and progress march on, there have been advancements that many of us could never have imagined. Things like wheelchair ramps and handicapped parking spaces were virtually nonexistent only a few decades ago.

Nowadays, these conveniences for people with disabilities are extraordinarily common and are seen nearly everywhere you go. The popularity of such accommodations and so many people with disabilities making use of them seems commonplace and certainly nothing so extraordinary.

But the truth is, it took considerable time and effort to bring about things like handicapped parking spaces and wheelchair ramps. By contrast, the Internet has become friendly to people with disabilities in a much shorter time.

Disability Hardware And Software

Thunder is a screen reader that's free of charge for the disabled.

With various gadgets and devices catering to people with disabilities, the Internet and computers in general have gone a long way to providing for those who might not be able to access Internet and computers in the way that they were traditionally intended.

With this effort to provide for those who might need some assistance, all manner of features and software have been developed. Among these is software that reads text from the screen.

It then translates it into speech to be perfectly understood by those who might not be able to read or see the monitor to make out the text. It literally reads the screen and then speaks it.

In addition to software that reads text and converts it into speech is software that does the opposite. By providing voice activated software, many operating systems have the ability for people to control the operating system by voice alone.

While still in its infancy, voice activated features and software have come a long way and have allowed all manner of individuals the freedom of becoming untethered from their keyboard and mouse.

Converting Speech To Text

Some of the most interesting software allows individuals to speak into a microphone and then have that speech converted into text. This allows for large blocks of information to be communicated over the Internet.

This is a godsend to individuals who are unable to type or to operate the mouse and keyboard at all. The impossible becomes possible as simply talking replaces the job of keying in information via a keyboard.

While generally intended for people with disabilities, these features and software are available for anyone and provide an extraordinarily simple user experience for those who wish to improve their convenience level.

In many cases, software that allows individuals to speak and convert that speech into text has become extraordinarily popular with stenographers, journalists and others who do a tremendous amount of typing and are not the most accomplished of typists.

In this way, the software that is designed for use by individuals who cannot otherwise operate keyboard and mouse has become popular with those who simply do not wish to operate keyboard and mouse.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

For practical accessible web site design relative to people with disabilities, we use and support the following recommendations stated by the World Wide Web Consortium in their document Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

• Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.
• Don't rely on color alone.
• Use markup and style sheets and do so properly.
• Clarify natural language usage
• Create tables that transform gracefully.
• Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully.
• Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes.
• Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces.
• Design for device-independence.
• Use interim solutions.
• Use W3C technologies and guidelines.
• Provide context and orientation information.
• Provide clear navigation mechanisms.
• Ensure that documents are clear and simple.

As with many products, features that are aimed at people with handicaps have become popular with those who are simply interested in convenience, bringing the software and features into the mainstream and making them widely available to the rest of the world.

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this "people with disabilities" page.