For most people the Internet has become a matter of course. Information from around the world is ready for retrieval. And perhaps more importantly, also the special offers or the opening times of the registration office can be seen at the home screen. Annoying library visits or phone calls are unnecessary, you just look online. But not everyone benefits from this development.
Especially people with any physical or mental disability that makes it difficult for them to fully participate in society could benefit enormously from communications technology. But they often fail because of barriers that hamper their access to information or the use of current services or make it even impossible. Many of these barriers can be overcome if the offers are designed accordingly.
Accessible web design accordingly aims to make content and interactions in the network for all possible user groups and devices available.
Definition: “Web accessibility is about enabling equal access to online content and services for all people, including those with visual and mobility impairment.”
(http://www.motive.co.nz/glossary/web-access.php, date of use: 5th of May 2011)
The monitor is almost seen as the classic icon of the computer. And those who cannot see have a problem. We are not talking about a small minority: About a quarter of the people of working age are complaining of various degrees of vision deficiency. Some vision problems can be well compensated with glasses; others just can be compensated limited. Certain eye diseases such as cataracts or glaucoma can be resolved or at least mitigated through surgery.
Still others, such as retinitis pigmentosa or diabetic retinopathy lead to a steady deterioration of vision and ultimately often to a complete loss of vision. In the so-called tunnel vision, the visual field of the data subject is extremely limited.
About 10% of the male population is affected by mild forms of color blindness. In most cases, this means that certain red and green colors cannot be distinguished from one another. Blindness to other colors, complete color blindness, red-green color blindness does not happen to women frequently.
Persons whose eyesight remains only a few percent of the average value are considered as visually completely blind. The number of blind people so determined is considered with 670,000 for the US. Some of them can decipher texts at the computer via font enlargement while as others rely to the information being given audibly or to touch them on the Braille display.
In general you can say that visually impaired persons can be subdivided in the class of the color blind, the class of the partial blind and low vision often caused by increasing age and in the class of the complete blind.
There are many different tools available for those with impaired vision to experience the World Wide Web and use the computer to succeed in daily life.
Individuals with a visual impairment must adapt to leading a life in near darkness. Modern technology and invention have made it possible for the visually impaired to read, call people on the phone and cross busy streets without the help of another person. Many devices exist that can assist those with a visual impairment to explore the internet.
Approximately 5.1 percent of persons nationally age 18 to 44 say they have trouble seeing even when wearing glasses or contact lenses, according to Lighthouse International, an organization for the visually impaired. Equipment for the visually impaired can help college students with visual impairments succeed in school. These same tools are useful for people with visual impairments who are not in school.
Lighthouse International is a nonprofit organization that works to help people with visual impairments. It has released an add-on software tool to help people with impaired vision view more web pages. Its open source program is the first to allow people with moderate to severe vision problems to view web pages as the site creators intended. LowBrowse allows people to read text on pages altered to meet their needs. The free program works with Mozilla Firefox, Windows, MacOS, and Linux.
Source of picture: http://www.museumonline-belvedere07.at/wp-content/uploads/bf/braillezeile.jpg
Braille keyboards translate written content or even pictures to a Braille field connected with the computer via USB. The user can feel the letters and pictures at the keyboard where his computer mouse is situated. Other Braille systems read whole text passages without using the visually impaired’s mouse.
Dragon Naturally Speaking is a computer voice recognition program. You speak into a headset microphone and the program types what you speak on the computer. You can also navigate through your computer and the internet using voice commands. Dragon Naturally Speaking will read websites and documents to users. This is especially useful when doing research or writing and editing essays. If you use Dragon NS you can often type faster than those using a physical keyboard. Dragon NS has versions for PC and Mac. There are specialized versions for medical and legal studies. In the course of our research, we used Dragon NS from time to time to type our texts and we have to admit: After a training period it is fantastic fast!
Source of picture: http://www.3gstore.de/img/p/apple-ipad-64-gb-wifi-umts-3g--333-1550-large.jpg
The iPad is a useful reading tool for students with visual impairments who can see large print and prefer to read text. It can store many textbooks, PDF documents and other notes. You can quickly enlarge the image on the screen by a finger gesture. iPads can also help business people and other professionals who are partial blind to improve their working speed.
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