Digital Accessibility Guide for Aging Population (original) (raw)

Context sensitive accessibility aid to middle-aged adults and elderly users in web systems

Proceedings of the 29th ACM international conference on Design of communication - SIGDOC '11, 2011

This paper describes an interaction mechanism aimed at enhancing the accessibility of Web pages to middle-aged adults and seniors. The proposed approach builds on previous research on problems commonly encountered by these users. The presented solution encompasses the customization of Web page layouts and the use of automatically-generated voice prompts to users. One of the main contributions of this work is the use of contextualized aids according to the genre of Web pages and the types of features they contain. An automatic page categorization scheme has been developed, alongside with a tool to collect knowledge from users about the nature of pages.

Designing universal access: web-applications for the elderly and disabled

Cognition, Technology & Work, 2007

Throughout a person's life they are likely to experience some degree of impairment. What must be ensured is that these individuals can benefit from the opportunities afforded by technology in the same way as those who are able bodied. With the Internet becoming an increasingly popular medium for organizations to deliver information and services to the public many of these technological benefits are provided through web applications. However, due to possible visual, physical or cognitive impairments, older users and those with disabilities are more likely to experience difficulties. This paper addresses issues relating to usability of web applications for elderly and disabled users and investigates ways in which it can be improved, and whether doing so will affect usability for younger and more able users. Results from experiments undertaken indicated that it was possible to develop a web application for elderly and disabled users without degrading usability for other users.

Are guidelines enough? An introduction to designing Web sites accessible to older people

2005

Abstract As the Web becomes more integral to day-to-day life, there is a danger that many older people will be excluded if their access needs are not considered by content designers. Although accessibility guidelines for designers are available, experience shows that these guidelines have not been successful enough in producing Web sites accessible to older people.

Improving WCAG for elderly web accessibility

Proceedings of the 28th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication - SIGDOC '10, 2010

The increase of aging people and the possibilities that are extended to the Internet users have led studies into improvement of web accessibility solutions for older people . Most older adults present some decline in their cognitive, visual, hearing and motor skills . Nowadays, however, the Web faces new technological challenges that extend the initial idea of cross-platform and inter-operational nature of the HTML and HTTP. The challenges are posed as accessibility barriers and consider the skills, capabilities, culture, languages, disabilities, among other characteristics related to the user as a human being, in contrast to the hardware and software requirements previously addressed. The human characteristics of the challenge can be seeing as the ultimate barrier of the initial Web requirements of crossplatform and inter-operational environment, and goes towards social inclusion of people whatever differences they might present in the Web. In this paper we propose the establishment of a new set of success criteria that address older users accessibility into the normative document of WCAG 2.0. The proposed recommendations were identified from a composition of usability studies with real older users and were tested for different scenarios.

Adapting Web Information to Disabled and Elderly Users

Abstract: Substantial research and standardization efforts already exist to make it easier for people with physical impairments to perceive and interact with web pages. This paper describes work aimed at catering the content of web pages to the needs of different users, including elderly people and users with vision and motor impairments. The AVANTI system and related efforts in the AVANTI project will be discussed and experiences reported.

Accessibility and Usability of Web Content and Applications

Quality and Communicability for …, 2010

Accessibility is essential for every system or product in order to guarantee equal opportunity for access and use to all, including the differently-abled. Thus it is crucial to remove any technological barriers for special needs users, who explore the Internet by assistive technologies. However, ensuring efficient and satisfactory (in other words, usable) interaction with user interfaces (UIs) of products or services must occur in the design phase, in order to produce UIs that are universally simple to understand, rapid and easy to use. Applying accessibility and usability criteria from the very beginning of the design phase is much less costly than introducing it later, so specific guidelines should be followed from the earliest stages of the design process. In the long run, creating accessible and usable Web UIs will improve overall efficiency and effectiveness of interaction for any individual and organization. developers can only implement good design by becoming aware of all the obstacles encountered by users aided by assistive technologies. Likewise, making interaction with the user interfaces (UIs) of products or services effective, efficient and satisfactory (in other words, usable (International Standard Organization [ISO], 1998) is another pillar of the design phase .

Web Accessibility for Persons with Motor Limitations

Disability Informatics and Web Accessibility for Motor Limitations, 2014

Nowadays the internet is an important medium for serving people. Using the internet can help people completing several tasks and accessing different types of information (e.g., reading news, finding location for places, buying and selling products online, and so on). Accessing the internet is not an easy task for people with motor disabilities. The main barriers come from two issues: difficulty or inability in using the mouse and difficulty or inability on typing on the keyboard. The web accessibility guidelines are a set of suggested techniques to be used by web developers when designing, implementing, and maintaining websites to make them easy to access by people with disabilities. This chapter presents the importance of applying web accessibility standards and guidelines when designing and developing web pages. These guidelines are obtained from Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG), section 508, and other literature. The challenges and barriers encountered by people wi...

From assistive technology to a web accessibility service

Proceedings of the fifth international ACM conference on Assistive technologies - Assets '02, 2002

This paper considers different ways to enhance access to the World Wide Web for persons with sensory, cognitive, or motor limitations.

An Examination of Web Site Accessibility Issues

2006

The Web is becoming more important for communication and for data access. Unfortunately, not all Web sites are accessible for all users. Web accessibility is concerned with overcoming the barriers that users with disabilities face when they try to access information on Web sites. Currently, for disabled users, the Web presents many barriers that make it diffiult to use. These