How do people access the Web (II)

In a recent post I used a video to demonstrate How people access the Web. It profiled one user but my intention was to encourage people to think outside the box and not assume every person has common abilities. When designing a Web site the only thing you can take for granted (for now) is that every end user is human, period.

I’m not going to sit here, preach and list various disabilities. Instead, I’ll continue to post more videos to continue to demonstrate how people access the Web. For all you know, one of your Web sites is someone else’s favourite.

While picking my daughter up from school today the parents were told the school is setting up a Web site. Obviously this trigged an interest from me, I asked if it would be accessible.

One mother looked and me and asked what I meant, so to dumb it down and sum it up quickly I said “If a Web site is built correctly, anyone should be able to access the information upon it, including blind people”. Her jaw dropped. I didn’t want to single out blind people, but I knew she understood.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for one day.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat for life

Its not as simple as give a blind person a screen reader and they can access all information on the Web. The software is designed to work best with complaint Web sites, so for all the little pains you might feel having to use the correct mark up and structure if you stop and think about it, those little efforts are seriously improving someone else’s virtual experience, which in some case can be better than real life.