Humanizing the web for different individuals around the world is a fair target to set. That's why the Web Content Acessibility Guidelines (WCAG) has a clear goal of providing a standard that defines the optimal level of accessibility for web content.
Accessiblity matters because it assures that everyone, including people with disabilites are allowed to get the best out of the web, and makes sure that every element on a web page is acessible and easy to use.
We, at Baianat, are on a quest to remove any barriers and ensure proper digital accessibility, so everyone can interact normally with the web content we provide, as well as contribute to it.
There are different reasons why some people may have troubles navigating the web. It's not exclusive to people with disabilities, but it includes anyone who might be put into a non-optimal situation for browsing the web.
There are mainly three different categories of situtations which might hinder users from properly using the web if it's not made with accessibility in mind; the three categories are: permanent, temporary, or situational.
To demonstrate that accessibility is not just meant for people with disabilities, the situational category highlights certain situations that anyone can find himself in during his everyday life.
For example, captions are an excellent solution for people who want to go through some audible content in a situation where they do not want to disturb people around them. Although captions are originally meant for people with a hearing impairment or dyslexia, you can see that they can still be used situationally for anyone to provide better access to web content.
Another example that highlights a different form of disability is a person who broke a wrist or arm and is not able to use both the keyboard and mouse at the same time, so they rely on keyboard navigation for doing the most of their web navigation. This one falls into the temporary disability category, where users have limited access to browse the web.
There are different degrees of visual disabilities. They can range from a mild, or moderate vision loss in one or both eyes, to a substantial or complete loss of vision in both eyes. They can also be related to problems in interpreting colors, which relate to color blindness, and there's also the problem of being too sensitive to bright colors and brightness in general.
To propery categorize visual disabilities, we can list them as follows:
- Blindness: marginal or complete loss of vision in one or both eyes.
- Low vision: this refers to having a proper vision, like having a blurry or clouded vision, or seeing only certain parts of the visual field
- Color blindness: the difficulty to distinguish between different colors, or the inability to interpret any color
This includes the different cases of having a specific hearing impairment in one or both ears. Users trying to access audio content can feel restricted if they have a partial loss in hearing.
The auditory disabilities include:
- Hearing difficulties: mild or moderate hearing impairment in one or both ears.
- Complete loss of hearing: A permanent and complete impairment in one or both ears.
People with certain speech problems produce speech that is difficult to recognize by people or software.
Speech didabilities include:
- Stuttering: talking with continued involuntary repetition of sounds, especially initial consonants.
- Dysarthria: difficult or unclear articulation of speech that is otherwise linguistically normal.
- Muteness: inability to speak, often caused by a speech disorder or surgery.
Physical disabilities reflect motor problems or limitations of muscular control. They limit how someone could interact with someone or something through dynamic movements.
They include:
- Amputation: the removal of a limb or more by trauma, medical illness, or surgery.
- Arthritis: disorders that affect the the joints.
- Paralysis: the loss of muscle function for one or more muscles.
- Repetitive strain injuries: injuries that affect muscles, nerves, and tendons due to repeititive movement and overuse.