How People with Disabilities Use the Web

Accessibility: It's about people

Introduction

How do people who cannot move their arms use your website? What about people who cannot see well or at all? Or people who have difficulty hearing, or understanding, or have other disabilities?

This resource introduces how disabled people use the web, including people with age-related impairments. It helps developers, designers, content creators, and others understand the reasons behind creating accessible digital products — including websites, apps, browsers, and other web tools.

Sections in this resource

• Stories of Web Users (also called “personas”) — represent the experiences of people with different disabilities.
• Diverse Abilities and Barriers — introduces the wide diversity of abilities and highlights some accessibility barriers that people experience because of inaccessible digital technology.
• Tools and Techniques — covers the tools and techniques that disabled people use to interact with digital technology.

Related WAI resources

• Accessibility Principles – introduces the four principles used to organize accessibility requirements and provides examples of requirements related to each principle from the international accessibility standards from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
• Web Accessibility Perspectives Videos: Explore the Impact and Benefits for Everyone – presents a collection of short videos highlighting accessibility features that are essential to people with disabilities and useful for all.