Thursday, January 26, 2017

Accessibility (outside of web) as a necessity

When thinking about web accessibility specific it is always good to acquire a broader understanding of the accessibility in general.

In Oxford Dictionary the noun "accessibility" has following meanings:
1.1) The quality of being easy to obtain or use.
1.2) The quality of being easily understood or appreciated.
1.3) The quality of being easily reached, entered, or used by people who have a disability.

What many do not understand is, that accessibility should not be an option, but necessity. In Universal Declaration of Human Rights is written that all human beings are born equal in rights. However a right to access something is often neglected.

People with disabilities, regardless of the severity of dissability, should be viewed as an equal part of the society. Everyone deserves to be as independent as possible. Especially those who are taking part in design of any kinds should always keep that fact in mind. With making any kinds of products, buildings, services, etc. accessible, people with dissabilities are offered this independence.

Nowadays it is quite clear and commonly understood worldwide, that buildings need to be accessible for people on wheelchairs. Almost every bigger store has a parking specially reserved for the disabled. Other groups of people with disabilities are still being considerably neglected.

Did you ever wonder how a bling person can use an ATM machine to withdraw money, how a blind person can use an elevator or how it is possible to order a ticket at a ticket machine? Those are just some of the daily struggles that people without dissabilities can not even imagine. There are slowly more and more products in the public space which are designed in a way that also a blind users can operate them, but they should become self-evident in the near future. Below are some good practice examples. 



(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Elevator_panel_with_Braille.jpg)


No comments:

Post a Comment