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Alvaro Montoro
Alvaro Montoro

Posted on • Originally published at alvaromontoro.com

Myth: Accessibility is for blind people

There is an all-in-one article including every part from this series (if you want prefer to read it all at once instead of "by installments")

With the most popular assistive technologies being focused on people with visual disabilities, it is tempting to think that accessibility is mainly for blindness.

But there's more to it:

  • Deaf or deaf-blind people,
  • People using automatic page-turners, adaptive pencil grips, or assistive pointer devices,
  • People with vestibular disorders,
  • Keyboard users, braille devices users, sip-and-puff device users, to name a few.

The people who require Web Accessibility are not a homogeneous group. Therefore, we cannot apply a one-size-fits-all type of solution and move forward with it.

Take the online controversy that happened not so long ago as an example: a blind person organized a ClubHouse meeting about Web Accessibility. Soon, he got some backlash from the Deaf community as ClubHouse is a notoriously inaccessible platform, and the gathering excluded people with hearing problems.

Is it really possible to talk about accessibility while focusing only on visual disabilities? Without including all people involved? The answer is no.

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