Web Accessibility: Current Trends
Handbook of Research on Personal Autonomy Technologies and Disability Informatics, 1, chapter 11, IGI Global, 1st edition, (May 2011)Abstract
Web accessibility conjures the vision of designers, technologists, and researchers valiantly making the World--Wide--Web (Web) open to disabled users. While this maybe true in part, the reality is a little different. Indeed, Web accessibility is actually about correcting our past mistakes by making the current Web fulfill the original Web vision of access for all. It just so happens that in the process of trying to re-engineer these corrections, that have for the most part ignored, we may solve a number of `larger--scale' usability issues faced by every Web user. Indeed, by understanding disabled--user's interaction we enhance our understanding of all users operating in constrained modalities where the user is disabled by both environment and technology. It is for this reason that Web accessibility is a natural preface to wider Web usability and universal accessibility, it is also why `main--stream' technologist take it so seriously and understand its cross-over benefits.