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The International Day of Persons with Disabilities is marked on 3 December. It’s a day to talk about the obstacles faced by people with disabilities realizing their rights on an equal basis with other people – and the steps needed to minimize them. However, not enough attention is devoted to this topic by society, with many thinking the problem of accessibility concerns only a small circle of people. But is that really the case?
In 2021, there were 2.7 million people with disabilities in Ukraine. But that’s only those who are officially registered as such, and the real number is actually much higher. Every day, they deal with barriers that make it much more difficult – even impossible – to do simple things, like ordering a taxi using a mobile app where the colour contrast makes it difficult to read text, or withdrawing money from an ATM where all the writing on the screen is too small. In fact, such situations have probably happened to everyone, so these are not just obstacles for people with disabilities, but obstacles that each of us faces as a result of inconvenient (poorly designed) environments or products. This applies in particular to the digital technologies world.
While people with disabilities usually make up only a small part of an electronic resource’s users, up to 50 percent, on the other hand, are people with reduced mobility, or those in challenging circumstances: those who can see, but poorly; those who can hear, but who cannot turn on the sound in the video (because they are in public transport, for example); and those with an injured hand, or busy hands. If a digital resource is not accessible enough, many customers might not be able to use it. Hence, digital transformation may further exacerbate inequalities and abuses of human rights, especially for vulnerable populations.
In order for all of them to find using websites and mobile applications convenient, these resources must have a sufficient level of web accessibility. This…
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