Physical Disabilities and Universal Design
There are nearly 22 million people with some form of limited mobility; this means they can’t move all or part of their body or have trouble controlling their movements.
Limited mobility can be the result of traumatic injury, disease, or aging. Many people with limited mobility rely on the web as their link to the world.
"Everything I can’t do in the real world, I can do on my Mac.”
--Joe Barnick (quadriplegic)
Assistive technologies used by people with limited mobility often work through the keyboard or emulate the functionality of a keyboard—which means they won’t have all the functions of a mouse. As a rule, sites should be designed so that they can be controlled using a keyboard in place of a mouse.
There are other issues to consider, also. For example, a person with limited mobility may have trouble controlling their physical movements. Making your website error tolerant will benefit them, as well as the non-disabled user.
Get Started with Accessible Design
Here are a few things to help your institution get started with accessibility:
- Make all functions available from the keyboard
- Make pages error tolerant
- Provide a method for skipping over long lists of links
For more information or additional tips:
Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act
iCITA Information Technology Accessibility Best Practices
Browse the videos to hear first-hand accounts from people with hearing impairments and to view see demos of assistive technologies.
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Everything I can't do in the real world I can do on my computer Quicktime 7 |
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A personal perspective Windows Media Player |