Additional information and statistics from the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB)

The RNIB (http://rnib.org.uk/) was kind enough to supply a little data regarding the number of blind people here in the UK. These may prove useful when arguing/considering a case for using ARIA states in your project:

•  There are just over 84,000 registered blind and partially sighted people of working age in the UK (out of an estimated population of around 64 million).  

However, according to the government's Labour Force Survey, around 185,000 people of working age in the UK have a self-reported seeing difficulty. This includes people whose sight loss would not be eligible for registration, but which is still of sufficient severity to affect their everyday lives. It also includes those who do not consider themselves as disabled. Of the 185,000:

• 113,000 consider themselves as long-term disabled with a seeing difficulty
• 72,000 consider themselves as not disabled with a seeing difficulty...