Accessibility - Why Should I Make My Web Site More Accessible?
Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is accessible by as many people as possible. Assistive technology - tools to help people with disabilities to use computers more effectively. Some general categories of disabilities, and some common aids include: Software or hardware that has been specifically designed to assist people with disabilities in carrying out daily activities. Assistive technology includes wheelchairs, reading machines, devices for grasping, etc. In the area of web accessibility, common software-based assistive technologies include screen readers, screen magnifiers, speech synthesizers, and voice input software that operate in conjunction with graphical desktop browsers (among other user agents). Hardware assistive technologies include alternative keyboards and pointing devices. Motor impairments - sticky keys and slow keys, hardware devices such as head-mounted input devices and eye-tracking systems Visual impairments - screen enlargement utilities, tactile and auditory output and text-to-speech systems. Hearing impairments - visible alerts, speech-to-text systems, captioning Cognitive impairments - reminder systems Providing non-text equivalents (e.G., pictures, videos, and pre-recorded audio) of text is also beneficial to some users, especially nonreaders or people who have difficulty reading. In movies or visual presentations, visual action such as body language or other visual cues may not be accompanied by enough audio information to convey the same information. Unless verbal descriptions of this visual information are provided, people who cannot see (or look at) the visual content will not be able to perceive it. References: For the latest version of any w3c specification please consult the list of w3c technical reports. Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Accessibility---Why-Should-I-Make-My-Web-Site-More-...?&id=4421664] Accessibility - Why Should I Make My Web Site More Accessible?Comments [0]
