Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities
This is a great guide that shows you how and why to make your Web site accessible to people with disabilities.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities
Chapter 11: Looking Ahead Towards Emerging Technology
Overview
The issues of next-generation interfaces, globalization, personalization, information dissemination, and converging emergent technologies have created an incredible dichotomy for people with disabilities: the widespread proliferation of multimodal information through advanced network systems, disseminated anywhere, anytime yet most designed and developed with little thought regarding accessibility to people with disabilities.
This is a vicious cycle that people with disabilities know all too well. With each new technology, the disabilities community often is offered nothing more than quick-fix solutions to accessibility problems. Subsequently, technology that increases access to people with disabilities is termed assistive and adaptive as opposed to being a technology that is inherently accessible.
The focus of this chapter is to examine a few emerging information technologies and how each implements measures to advance Internet and Web accessibility for people with disabilities.
Enabling Technology: Is There a Future?
In an age when technology buzzwords such as immersive and Universal Design imply access for all, you may wonder why emerging technology isn t designed accessibly from the start. Certainly, advances in human-centered design methodology and processes promote usability for every user, right? In theory yes, in practice no.
User-centered design processes and methods are sound. The problem lies in practice. The level of user participation involving people with disabilities is practically nonexistent. Consequently, next-generation interfaces are rarely prepared to deal with the inevitable the moment the interface goes public, millions of people with disabilities are not able to use it.
Fortunately, not all is lost. While much...
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