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Accessible web pages provide access to fundamental government services and information such as tax forms, social programs, and legislative representatives. The following is a list of reasons many find compelling.Īccessibility represents an important step toward independence for individuals with disabilities. Individuals and organizations with different functions will find different reasons to adopt accessibility. A quick test using the keystrokes available in Internet Explorer can provide a valuable glimpse of the difficulties a web page may present for users with disabilities.Īccessibility is an immensely important effort. The designer or developer of these elements must ensure that keyboard-defined events are included along with mouse-defined events. Rollovers, pull-down lists, and interactive simulations are all examples of elements that typically depend on the mouse for user interaction. In these cases, it is very important that essential components of the page work without a mouse. A head pointer is simply a stick placed in a person’s mouth or mounted on a head strap that the person uses to interact with a keyboard or a touchscreen. A touchscreen allows an individual to navigate the page using her or his hands without the fine-motor control required by the mouse.
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In some cases, users may employ touchscreens, head pointers, or other assistive devices. (The dotted lines around links in Internet Explorer are an indicator of this capability.) Pressing Enter activates links, much like clicking a mouse. In Microsoft Internet Explorer, pressing Tab moves the focus of the browser among all available links on a page. Many users of the Internet have the capability to navigate without a mouse and are simply unaware of it. Using only Tab and Enter on the keyboard, it is possible for these individuals to negotiate a page with ease. For individuals with nerve damage, arthritis, or repetitive motion injuries, use of the mouse may not be comfortable or possible. Users with mobility issues may rely on the keyboard instead of the mouse to navigate web pages. Screen magnifiers that provide a speech feature depend on the same accessibility information as screen readers. Screen magnifiers increase the size of a portion of the user’s screen or the entire screen in order to make the content more visible. Two popular screen magnifiers are ZoomText from Ai Squared and MAGic from Freedom Scientific.
#Microsoft accessibility standards software
Some magnifier users utilize speech features within magnification tools or use magnifier software in conjunction with a screen reader. Users with low vision often depend on magnification software. These text descriptions are called alternative text, or alt text. It is desirable, therefore, that images and animations be assigned text descriptions that screen readers can read. Screen readers enable users to hear, rather than read, the contents of a web page however, a screen reader can read only text, not images or animations. Two common screen readers are JAWS from Freedom Scientific and Window-Eyes from GW Micro. These tools, known as assistive technologies, range from screen readers to touchscreens and head pointers.īlind users of the web frequently use software called a screen reader to read the contents of a web page out loud. Users with disabilities frequently rely on hardware and software to access web content. Accessibility allows people to maintain a level of independence that age would likely otherwise make difficult. Thus, accessibility is not just about opening doors - it is about keeping them open. In fact, almost 75% of the population over 80 years old has a disability. population has a disability, as the population ages, the proportion of people with disabilities grows (see Table 1). As people get older, most face a disability of some kind. Disability categories can also include temporary disabilities for example, someone with a broken wrist may have difficulty using a mouse but still needs access to the web to meet day-to-day job requirements.Īt the same time, statistics about individuals with disabilities may be misleading. For example, visual impairments include limited vision, color blindness, and blindness. Each category includes a much wider range of conditions. Within that group are individuals with visual, hearing, cognitive, and motor impairments. population as having some sort of disability. Census Bureau categorizes 19.6% of the U.S. The range of disabilities is broad and difficult to categorize however, it is important to have some sense of the scope of the issue.Ī 1997 report by the U.S.