Web accessibility: a digital divide for disabled people?

Adam, AE; Kreps, DGP

Abstract

The focus of this paper is Web accessibility for disabled people. Much of the Web remains inaccessible or difficult to access by people across a spectrum of disabilities and this may have serious implications for the potential use of the Web for increasing social inclusion. The topic of disabled Web access is introduced through a consideration of four discourses: digital divide, social construction of disability, legal, and Web accessibility. The lack of dialogue between these permits a passive liberal approach toward disability discrimination to prevail and this political position has become inscribed in widely used automatic software tools resulting in a reinforcement of the view that Web site accessibility approval may, in many cases, be deemed an empty shell.

• Publication Date: Jun 15, 2006
• Deposit Date: Mar 12, 2009
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 12, 2009
• Publisher: Springer
• Pages: 217-228
• Series Title: IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
• Book Title: Social inclusion: societal and organizational implications for information systems
• ISBN: 9780387345871
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-34588-4_15
• Publisher URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/x835p22217q3t143/
• Related Public URLs: http://www.springerlink.com/home/main.mpx
• Additional Information: Additional Information : The original publication is available at http://www.springerlink.com. IFIP TC8 WG8.2 International Working Conference, July 12–15, 2006, Limerick, Ireland