January 21, 2011
Got accessibility? Mobile-friendly sites also help disabled users
One in four Americans live with a disability that interferes with activities of daily living. These people can benefit significantly from easy access to news, information, communication, services, community, and resources—all of which are widely available online. But 2% US adults report having a disability or illness that makes it harder or impossible for them to use the internet. This can further impair their quality of life and even their health. A new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Americans living with disability and their technology profile, describes this problem in more detail. There are some ways to make digital media more widely accessible—including some options that news organizations could (and should) implement…
Some highlights from this report:
“54% of adults living with a disability use the internet, compared with 81% of adults who report none of the disabilities listed in the survey.”
“Statistically speaking, disability is associated with being older, less educated, and living in a lower-income household. By contrast, internet use is statistically associated with being younger, college-educated, and living in a higher-income household. Thus, it is not surprising that people living with disability report lower rates of internet access than other adults. However, when all of these demographic factors are controlled, living with a disability in and of itself is negatively correlated with someone’s likelihood to have internet access.”
“People living with disability, once they are online, are also less likely than other internet users to have high-speed access or wireless access.”
Earlier Pew research also found that people with wireless (mobile) internet access are “more likely than other internet users to post their own health experiences online or to access the health information created by other people in online forums and discussion groups.”
Pew supports extending enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act to include web sites operated by “certain entities.” Through Jan. 24, the US Dept. of Justice is taking public comments on its proposed new ADA accessibility requirements for web sites.
Specifically, the new rules would “revise the regulations implementing titles II and III of the ADA to establish specific requirements for state and local governments and public accommodations to make their web sites accessible to individuals with disabilities.”
In an informational sense, a news organization could conceivably be considered a “public accommodation.”
But even if news orgs don’t specifically fall under these new rules, there’s one easy way to start to make your digital presence far more accessible: Create a mobile-friendly version of your site, and make it simple and obvious to access from the top of every page on your site.
The W3C consortium outlined how making a site mobile friendly also enhances accessibility. “Most Mobile Web specialists don’t know about design issues for people with disabilities. Likewise, most Web accessibility specialists don’t know Mobile Web design best practices. Web sites can more efficiently meet both goals when developers understand the significant overlap between making a Web site accessible for a mobile device and for people with disabilities.”
For more resources, see Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile Devices
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Tags: mobile, development, design, accessibility
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thanks!
By haller, 02/01/11 at 9:55 am
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