Posts Tagged ‘access’

The Web Has Made Assistive Technology Amazing

People with visual, hearing, or other physical impairments are usually familiar with the assistive technology that helps them live, learn, and communicate with others. But not every home-based entrepreneur is aware that these technologies can help them communicate with the largest possible audience.

There are more than 30 million people with disabilities who can be affected by the design of computer software, according to Mike Paciello, founder and CTO of WebABLE, a Nashua, N.H.-based consulting firm that focuses on assistive technologies. In 1998, the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities reported that consumers with physical disabilities control more than $175 billion in discretionary income. “For SOHOs, that seems to be incentive enough to use these technologies,” says Paciello.

At the most fundamental level, your Web site can be specially coded to accommodate people with disabilities. Directions for doing this have been collected by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The organization’s Web Accessibility Initiative can be found at www.w3.org/WAI. “The guidelines cover everything from how to create …