Web Accessibility for All People

A law created in 1973, which is called The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, makes it possible for all disabled people to be able to access web pages on the Internet. This law makes it mandatory that all Federal agencies and the federal agency's contractors make all web information accessible for disabled people. The way Internet accessibility is made possible for disabled people is through adaptive hardware and software. Adaptive hardware and software includes any device that can connect to a computer in order to enable someone who has trouble seeing or navigating on the computer. Some other Acts and organizations who make this web accessibility for all possible include The Telecommunications Act of 1996, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), and Web Accessibility in Mind also known as WebAIM. The goal of each of these Acts and organizations is to improve accessibility on all parts of the world wide web for disabled people.

There are many tools on the market available for alternative web browsing. Some examples of tools used for alternative web browsing include refreshable braille displays, vischeck color blindness simulators, screen magnification software, screen reader software, and voice recognition software. The refreshable braille displays and screen reader software are typically used by people who are totally blind. The refreshable braille displays connect to computers and electronically convert the text on the screen to braille which enables the blind users to be able to read the text from the website. The screen reader software reads all parts of the text from the screen and provides the disabled user all navigational information through speech. The vischeck color blindness simulator and the screen magnification software are used by people who have visual impairments. The vischeck color blindness simulators can be used by people who have the red/green color deficit or the blue/yellow color deficit. This program defines the colors on the computer screen to make the colors visible for people with color blindness. The functions of the screen magnification software include enlarging all parts of the content on the computer screen, allowing viewers to adjust certain web page attributes such as color and cursor size, and reading the textual content out loud. Last, voice recognition software is typically used by people who have limited hand use. The purpose of this program is to allow users to enter commands by speaking into a computer microphone.