An Ultimate Guide to Accessibility

Imagine being in a world disabled and having no accessibility! you may never be able to do the things you’ve always wanted: drive a car, talk to your loved ones over the phone etc.

What is accessibility?

Accessibility is the design or adaptation of products, devices and environments that can be usable no matter the disability Thanks to the ADA (Americans with disabilities act.) This is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It was signed by President George H.W. Bush on July 26, 1990.

Why is accessibility important?

You may be thinking, “what’s so great about accessibility? If we didn’t have it, would people with disabilities mind?” Here are a couple situations to think about. Let’s just imagine for a second that you do have a disability and you are going out to dinner at a restaurant. You get to your table only to discover you cannot read the menu. Do you think about asking the waiter or waitress? You probably don’t want to waste their time. Now imagine you are hearing impaired. The waiter or waitress tries to get your attention so you can order, but you cannot understand. Now, let’s take a look at the final scenario. imagine that you are unable to get yourself out of the restaurant Because you are confined to a wheelchair. No matter how hard you try, you cannot hold the door without it closing on you and this is extremely frustrating

Accessibility is important because it gives disabled people the opportunity to do things without any barriers. This also gives disabled people a chance to show how capable they are.

how to improve accessibility?

Now that we know what and why accessibility is important, you may wonder how to improve it. Looking back at the first scenario, we imagined you were at a restaurant totally blind. You couldn’t read the menu, so you thought about asking the waiter or waitress to read it for you. You obviously don’t do that because you do not want to waste their time. To resolve this scenario, The restaurant offers you a braille menu. Next, we will look at the hearing-impaired scenario. You are ready to order now, but you cannot understand what they are saying. To resolve this issue, the waiter or waitress may stand in front of you so you can read their lips. Another way to resolve this issue is to have the waiter or waitress hold up the menu and you could point to whatever you would like. In the final scenario, we asked you to imagine that you are confined to a wheelchair. You are ready to leave, but no matter what you do, you cannot get out of the restaurant. You try and hold open the door, but holding a door and trying to roll through it is impossible. Once again, to resolve this issue, the restaurant installs automatic doors. now instead of being stuck, you are on a roll.

Let’s look at 2 more scenarios: one for the visually impaired/blind and one for the physically impaired. First, let’s start out with the visually impaired/blind. Imagine you are going to see a movie with your best friend. You ask your friend to describe the movie to you, but your friend has no idea what is going on. It seems that you and your friend both went into the movie completely blind. Thanks too descriptive audio, you can now understand what is actually happening. If you would like to read more about this amazing service and find out how it works, please visit here.

Now, let’s move on to the physically impaired. Let’s just say you are Rolling down the sidewalk and you come across a curb cut that is too low. You roll out into the street and almost collide with a moving vehicle! To resolve this, the city county installs truncated domes. For those of you who do not know what these are, they are raised bumps on the sidewalk for people with physical disabilities to help Orient them to where they are in relation to the street. Many more places offer people with physical impairments accessibility access. For example, elevators in shopping malls or any other stores allow them to go from one floor to the next. Ramps allow them to get in places without going up steps. Automatic doors allow for them to get inside restaurants and other venues. Here is another crazy idea to think about. What about movable sidewalks? Think about it. You are in your wheelchair with groceries or anything else you may have in your hands and you are magically transported to wherever you need to go. This doesn’t just have to be for the with physical impairments. It can be for the elderly, pregnant, people with prosthetics, etc.

Making a house or apartment accessible

Having an accessible house or apartment is a safe and smart choice. You may want to do this anyway whether you are living by yourself, have someone with a disability living with you or if you end up having guests over that may have special needs. Here is a helpful article.

Assistive technology and web accessibility

The first thing we will discuss is assistive technology. Many companies like Apple and Microsoft have designed products to work for people with disabilities. The categories that Apple went with are: vision, hearing, cognitive and physical and motor. If you choose to explore these, they can be controlled in accessibility settings on iPhone or accessibility preferences on Mac. with Microsoft users, it may be a little different to find. It is under the ease of access tab in settings. The only accessibility option I know about is narrator (Microsoft’s built-in screen reader.) I won’t go through all of the rest, but if you are curious, here is a link that will describe them all. There are also a number of Applications and assistive devices four different types of disabilities as well. If you would like more details on a list of devices, feel free to click here. For example, I use an App called Aira. This is a free smartphone app that will connect you to highly trained agents all over the world

Next, let’s bring the focus to web accessibility

Many people use websites for certain research (filling out job applications, looking up recipes to make delicious meals and other things.) we even rely on websites to listen to music (YouTube.com.) Making a website accessible means that anyone, regardless of their disability can use them. Let’s look at different examples.

Cognitive, Learning and Neurological

People who have cognitive, learning and neurological disabilities may have trouble focusing on a specific task. Websites could accommodate by:

· Making audio and visual content easier to hear and see.

· Avoid flashing or strobe lights for people with epilepsy (seizure disorders.)

Hearing Impairments

Auditory disabilities include mild TO moderate hearing impairments in one or both ears. To accommodate this, websites could offer closed captioning.

Visual Impairments

Visual impairments can range from mild or moderate loss of vision in one or both eyes to substantial or complete loss of vision in both eyes. To help with this, websites can make their user interface easy to navigate with screen readers. Websites can also add audio descriptions in videos.

Physical Impairments

people with physical disabilities are usually confined to a wheelchair, but this isn’t always the case. Other physical disabilities include limited dexterity, amputated limbs and arthritis. here are a couple of examples. Make your website keyboard friendly. Many people with physical impairments cannot use a Mouse due to fine motor skills. This does not have to be limited to physical disabilities, the elderly may also have trouble with this.

Organizations

Many organizations offer programs as well as weekly summer camps for people with disabilities. For example, Camp Barnabas is a summer camp for people with any ability. Even though it is 4 hours away, the staff is very caring and will help make sure your child or adult is kept safe as well as having fun. Another organization is Best Buddies. The people who I’ve met are so nice and you get paired up 1 to 1 with a college buddy.

The third organization is Delta Gamma. Every year, they go on a summer challenge trip and it is so fun! The final organization we will discuss is an organization called KEEN. The organization offers every kid, regardless of their disability to feel normal.

Accessibility is very awesome and fascinating to learn about. If a restaurant or something isn’t accessible in your area, try to educate them on the importance of accessibility. If we all work together, we may just see accessibility go very far!