Accessibility Errors in Website Interfaces

Abstract

It is rightly said by Samuel Butler “A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide.”

Disability can occur to any person at any age and once this condition occurs people find themselves cut off from the world of internet as they are no more able to access the internet as they used to earlier.

Most of accessibility related problems are faced by blind people as they rely totally on screen reading tools to access the web. Though, the tools available in the market make the blind equally efficient in using the internet but the basic interface of the website does not allow them to do so. Most websites do not contain the necessary tags to allow the screen reading software to read the text correctly.

The first part of this study looks at the general problems faced by disabled people and the provisions under the Disability Discrimination Act that are set in place to make the internet more accessible to disabled people.

The second part looks at the types of disabilities and how they affect the person from accessing the internet. This part also tells a little about the tools available for disabled people so that they can access the internet just like any other person.

Part three studies the barriers that are faced by disabled people in accessing the internet and also contains the result of the test performed on some commonly used websites to check if they meet the requirements for disabled access.

Contents

Abstract…………………………………………………………. ……………….…..2
Contents ........................................................................................................................3
List of Abbreviations……………………………………………………………….....4
1.0 Introduction…..………………………………………………………………..….5
2.0 Presentation
      2.1 Definition of Disabled…………………………………………….…........7
      2.2 Definition of... [continues]

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