How Accessibility Benefits Everyone
Features designed for accessibility often make content easier to understand, navigate, and use in a variety of contexts. Accessibility features can improve a person’s experience whether they have a long-term or temporary disability, a situational impairment, or they simply prefer the experience of using that feature.
Accessible Design Benefits
- Improved navigation through clear headings and structure
- Enhanced readability with plain language and consistent formatting
- Flexible access from providing captions and transcripts
- Enabling use across different devices and environments
Accessible System Benefits
- Engagement with academic programs and course materials
- Expansion of research, collaboration, and outreach efforts
- Access to student services and support resources
- Participation in campus events and activities
Understanding Disability and Impairments
The term “disability” is much broader than you might think. A disability can be any type of impairment — visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, neurological, and more.
Disabilities and impairments may be long-term, temporary or situational.
Long-term Disabilities
Long-term disabilities can vary in severity over time or be characterized by a permanent condition that will not improve or resolve completely. Using assistive technology can often provide an alternative way for people with disabilities to perceive and interact with digital content.
Examples include blindness and other visual impairments, deafness or hard of hearing, loss of limb, some neurological disorders, and more.
Temporary Disabilities and Impairments
Some injuries and illnesses can impact people for a limited period of time. Temporary impairments may have similar impacts on a person’s ability to perceive or interact with digital content as permanent disabilities, but are expected to go away with treatment or time.
For example, breaking your arm may result in a person wearing a cast and being unable to effectively use a keyboard and mouse.
Situational Impairments
Many people may briefly experience impairments in certain situations where solutions initially created for people with disabilities are helpful.
For example, closed captions were designed as a way to provide people who are deaf or hard of hearing to be able to know what audio is present in a video. This solution can solve a similar temporary problem for a person who doesn’t have access to speakers or headphones.
Common Types of Assistive Technology
Individuals with disabilities that significantly affect the way they can interact with technology often use assistive technology to help them use computing devices and the web. These tools vary, but here are some examples of commonly used assistive tools.
Screen Reader
Screen readers are applications that read content aloud to the user. Screen readers are often used by people with significant visual impairments (i.e., blind or low vision). Popular screen reader applications are JAWS, VoiceOver, and NVDA.
Screen Magnifier
Screen magnifiers are applications that magnify content on the screen. Magnifiers are often used by low vision users, some of whom may be legally blind. A popular screen magnifier is ZoomText.
Alternative Input Devices
People may use any number of input devices to navigate your website, beyond a traditional mouse and keyboard — especially those with limited mobility or motor disabilities. There are a variety of alternative input devices that serve people with different disabilities and circumstances, including:
- Keyboard only (no mouse): Some users rely on a keyboard only, including people who are blind or have low vision.
- Speech recognition software: Speech recognition software uses voice input to perform actions, type, and execute commands and is especially useful for users with limited motor skills.
- Specialized touchpads or keyboards: Various options are available depending on the user’s need (e.g., large key, large print, or keyboards configured for use with one hand).
- Pointing devices and systems: People who have limited or no mobility from the neck down may use electronic pointing devices, physical aides to be able to interact with keyboards or sip-and-puff systems that are activated by inhaling or exhaling.