Who is Affected by the Accessibility of Web Sites?

• Blind - unable to see visual information
• Color deficiency
  • Euteranopia - red-green deficiency
  • Protanopia - red deficiency
  • Tritanopia - blue/yellow deficiency
  • Achromatopsia - total color blindness
• Low vision (can see but not well; may need large fonts or magnifiers). Far-sightedness, and other vision impairments greatly increase after the age of forty.

People who are blind usually navigates using only the keyboard and use screen readers, braille displays, voice input, and/or screen magnifiers. Among the needs of this group is meaningful text equivalents so a screen reader can "read" the information. Examples of how to provide accessible content for people with visual disabilites include using alt attributes for images and audio description for video.

People who have color disabilities may have the inability to distinguish the differences between certain colors, so they may need higher contrast to distinguish colors and alternative ways of identifying colored content.

People with Mobility/Motor/Dexterity disabilities have difficulty moving one or more parts of the body. Where web design and development is concerned, this usually involves a disability involving the hands and/or arms. It can include:

• Total or partial paralysis
• Repetitive stress injuries (RSI)
• Arthritis
• Stroke
• ALS (Arterial Lateral Sclerosis; Lou Gehrig's Disease)
• Parkinson's disease
• Spinal cord injuries
• Cerebral palsy
• Loss of limbs or digits
• Low dexterity (unable to use a pointing device like a mouse and instead must use keyboard or switch)

This group may experience difficulties using the mouse or the keyboard. The assistive technologies that people with motor disabilities include alternate input (e.g. voice) and keyboard alternatives (switch, sip and puff, etc).

• Deaf - people with profound hearing losses
• Hard of Hearing - people who cannot hear sounds reliably

Assistive technology that this group utilizes include captioning and transcripts.

Note: The phrase "hearing impaired" is typically rejected by members of the Deaf Community as it negatively emphasizes deficiency. People who use sign language generally refer to themselves as deaf. In some cases, the word Deaf is spelled with a capital D to refer to members of the Deaf Community.

Learning Difficulties

• Attention Deficit Disorder
• Dyslexia
• Low comprehension (having problems understanding content, textual or otherwise)
• Low reading (having problems reading text)
• Other non-verbal learning difficulties

Cognitive Disabilities

• Loss of brain function
• Short term memory loss
• Epilepsy - may be subject to epileptic episodes
• Alzheimer's disease
• Parkinson's disease
• Multiple sclerosis

Cognitive disabilities impact the ability to access, process or remember information; and limits the ability to perceive, recognize, understand, interpret or respond to information. The assistive technologies that this group uses include word prediction aids, reading/writing comprehension aids.