More and more activities can be done on the Internet, and for many, Internet use has already become a habit. But while for healthy users the Worldwideweb offers a wealth of possibilities in communication, information gathering and entertainment, for many people with disabilities it is still very difficult, if not impossible, to use websites to their full extent.
Here it is the task of web designers to make pages and their content accessible to all.
When an Internet page is opened, two different processes should basically take place. On the one hand, the website wants to present certain information in a comprehensible way, and on the other hand, the user may want to react to this information (for example, in the form of text input).
Now, however, every Internet user has different abilities and thus his or her own requirements for the design of web pages. For if certain abilities of seeing, hearing or understanding are limited or not available at all, then those affected inevitably encounter "barriers". Such barriers arise when certain content cannot be perceived, it cannot be understood, or it is impossible for the user to operate it.
A barrier arises, for example, when there are no navigation aids, colors and color contrasts are poorly chosen, or it is not possible to use the keyboard to operate the website. There are already technical aids that simplify operation. For example, there are programs that read content aloud to visually impaired users, screen magnifiers, joysticks and mice that can be operated by mouth.
But none of this helps if a website is simply designed in such a way that such assistants cannot work. For example, through chaotic arrangements or content that is too small.
So it is better to design the website barrier-free right away, so that many people can use what the site has to offer without much difficulty.
Blind people have less than 2% visual acuity, and even if there is some residual perception, it is usually limited to differences in brightness. With these conditions, blind people can only use Internet pages with great difficulty and not without help.
Their big problem is that they cannot use a screen or a mouse. Another problem is the occurring barriers due to too few or even missing words and the control, which usually can only be done with the mouse.
However, there are two options with which blind people can read content and even write emails. In both variants, visual information is converted into acoustic or tactile information so that blind persons can perceive the texts via other functioning sensory channels.
The first variant is reading programs - so-called screen readers - which read the content aloud. The blind person controls the program using the keyboard and thus determines which areas are read aloud. For such software to work, however, the web pages must be structured accordingly. Such a program can't do anything with a desolate structure. Conventional structures from header to navigation bar to the actual content to the footer are more helpful here. But also the actual content should be short and concise. Too many images and captions, several boxes containing different content or too lengthy text interfere with the operation and listening.
The second type of aid is the so-called Braille display. This is an additional device that converts text into Braille and thus makes it accessible to the blind user via his sense of touch. Using navigation buttons and in combination with a screen reader, the individual sections of a web page can be selected. But here, too, the website must have a conventional structure.
Further possibilities of the web page optimization for blind persons are the renouncement or at least a reduction of input fields and clear navigation aids. In addition, a website must not have a purely visual structure, especially graphics with text content need text alternatives. For a reading program, text formatting is also important, so headings should always be in tags.
