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Internet Accessibility for Individuals with Special Needs

Addressing special needs regarding Internet accessibility is important in today’s online, digital society.  Optimizing Web accessibility helps everyone using the Internet - especially those with disabilities.  People with all kinds of disabilities, including visual, audio, physical, speech, cognitive and neurological problems will benefit tremendously from better Web accessibility. 

It is important to accommodate everyone with special needs so that they have the easiest experience possible using the Web.  Some disabilities require the same or similar adjustments in order to be able to use the Internet, while other disabilities have completely different demands that require special accessibility functions and/or software in order to make use of Internet resources. 

Special Needs Accommodations:  For the Visually Impaired

The blind must rely on alternative programs and browsers, such as screen readers or voice browsers, when accessing the Web.  However, interferences can occur when blind people are searching the Web, even when they have tools to assist them.  Intricate images, certain video formats, images without alternative text, tables without proper organization, frame-based Web sites, certain document formats, and certain browsers can present problems for the screen readers to interpret.  Therefore, it is most helpful to keep these matters in mind when building Web sites for Internet accessibility. 

Those with low or impaired vision, color blindness, or certain learning disabilities will often utilize screen readers and magnifiers, style sheets, or change the text sizes and colors to assist them in their reading.  However, they can have difficulty with Web pages that do not let you change font sizes, enlarge screens, run screen reading software, run necessary style sheets, or have poor contrast or layout.  Keeping these issues in mind when creating Web pages can also assist in Internet accessibility.

Special Needs Accommodations:  For the Hearing Impaired

Those who are deaf or hard of hearing rely on captions for audio content that are on Web pages.  Problems with obtaining certain information from the Web can occur if there are a lack of captions on the Web or if the translation into captions is unclear.  Again, it is important to recognize that people with hearing impairments may be on your site when building your Web pages. 

People with certain learning disabilities will also use these caption options when browsing the Web. 

Special Needs Accommodations:  For Those with Physical Disabilities

Although there are many tools that people with physical disabilities use to assist them in searching the Web, such as special keyboards, mice, head-pointers and voice-recognition software, often these tools will not be supported by specific Web sites or browsers.  Additionally, Web pages with time limits can hinder people with physical disabilities because often they will take longer to finish reading or to complete a task online because of the alternative tools they are using. 

What to Keep in Mind When Building Web Sites for Internet Accessibility

Clear and organized structure and navigation elements are important for Web sites to enhance the Internet accessibility for people with special needs, such as those with learning disabilities, memory impairments, mental retardation, visual impairments and hearing hindrances.  Because many of the programs that assist people with special needs involve some kind of interpretation, easy-to-follow Web site structure is important for the computer to translate the page when necessary. 

Building Web sites that everyone can access and benefit from is an important part of Web page production.  Therefore, extra attention should be given to improving Web accessibility that will benefit everyone.