Chapter 3. Understanding Disability and Assistive Technology (AT)

In this chapter, I will share a few of disabilities types and how users with these disabilities could use technology.

I also understand how difficult it would be for you to successfully design and build accessible websites for users with varying degrees of abilities, especially if you have no experience of interacting with people who have disabilities. It can seem like a tall order, and in many ways it is. However, I hope that this chapter will help you to understand some aspects of disability. At the very least I hope that you will understand how diverse we as a species really are.

Blindness

There are many different degrees of blindness. I work for the National Council for the Blind of Ireland and most of our services are for visually impaired users and not users who are completely blind.

For example, a friend of mine can see perfectly well, but has a very rare and extreme form of dyslexia and is legally registered blind. He...