What is Digital Accessibility?

Digital Accessibility

Before discussing about digital accessibility, first, let’s discuss only about accessibility. Accessibility means development of product, services, equipment and structures in such a way that they can be easily accessed and used by all users including persons with disabilities.

In the same way, digital accessibility means the development of all aspects of digital world such as websites, mobile apps, software, electronic gadgets and documents in such way that they can use used by all including those with vision, hearing, mobility or learning related disability. In this course, we will focus more on creating accessible documents.

The Accessibility Process: Physical

There are primarily two steps in making any physical or digital products/services accessible to all users. They are as follows:

1. The producers/providers include the feature of accessibility in their product or services.
2. The users access these products or services with or without using additional tools according to their condition or need.

Let’s take an example.

How does a person, who can’t walk, go inside any building that has stairs in the entrance?

If we follow the previous step, we can see that:

1. First the developer or owner of that building makes a slope or a wheelchair ramp in the entrance.
2. Second, the user gets a wheelchair and uses the ramp to go inside the building.

Assistive Devices

The additional devices used by users to access any product or services according to their condition or need are called Assistive Devices. Like the wheelchair, in above example. Some other assistive devices are: Crutches, White Cane, Hearing Aids, Magnifier, Walker etc.

Assistive Technology

The process of making documents accessible is also same as discussed earlier. First, the documents creator puts accessibility features in the documents to make is usable by all and then the user uses the documents, using additional tools, if needed. These tools, which aids users to access digital products are called – Assistive Technologies. We shall discuss more about this later.