Blindness and Online Interaction: Beyond Design Standards

Abstract

The use of internet and other communication technologies has become predominantly common in the life of normal sighted users. In order to have a fair level of equality in the society, blind people must also be able to use these facilities with equal ease and effectiveness. Recent studies showed that the usage and acceptance rate of online applications among the blind community is not up to the expectations. The aim of this article is to investigate the accessibility issues faced by blind people during online interaction like eGovernment portals. Results showed that a WCAG compliant eGovernment website failed to satisfy the requirements of a sample of blind users. This article is part of on-going research aimed to uncover accessibility problems that could be faced by blinds during online interaction and are not addressed in accessibility standards. It attempts to understand cognition and perception thoughts of a blind user while interacting with a web-based environment.

Keywords: Blindness, Web Accessibility, WCAG