Accessible Web Design:

A Win-Win Situation

L620: Library Resources and Technologies

for Patrons with Special Needs

August 9, 2003

Laura Radzanowski

        Imagine you are in a library doing research for a paper.  After a little work, you locate the books you want, but when you open the books, you find that you cannot read the text and the colors on the pages and the pictures do not make any sense because there are no captions to explain them.

        Hard to believe?  Sound like a bad dream you had sometime around final exams one year?  Unfortunately, this sort of things happens everyday to people with disabilities.  The World Wide Web is much like a library.  It is filled with a wide variety of useful resources and services.  Everyday, billions of people access the Internet in a variety of ways, but approximately 15 to 30% (Constructing, 16) of the population have disabilities that make accessing the web a challenge.  And, as our population gets older, the number of people who rely on adaptive technology or assistive technology to access the web will increase.

        This website was created to give a basic understanding of accessible web design and what it means to the millions of people who can't access the wealth of information on the web.  This site will provide background, as well as awareness of some, but not all, of the different disabilities effected by this issue.  It will also provide information about some of the legal issues related to web accessibility, and some of the benefits of web accessible design.  Where possible, this site will provide tips for good web design (for example, the <alt> tags on the pictures located at the top of this page), as well as examples of poor design.

Disclaimers:

        Because this website is a research paper, the pages are linked so that they are viewed in order.  There is a list of links at the bottom of the page to allow visitors to view pages individually.  The pages represent small chunks of information to help people with learning disabilities digest the information.

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