| Visual impairment |
Barriers
|
Solutions
|
|---|
|
Layout not adaptable to users viewing needs (e.g. font-size, contrast
|
Use Flexible layouts that can be adapted by users to viewing needs
|
|
Cannot see visual content (text, links, images etc)
|
Provide textual descriptions of images, graphs and animations (alt-text) that can be read by screen readers
|
|
|
Provide audio description of the visual part of multimedia content such as videos
|
|
|
Provide content in a way that it can be read by screen reader software e.g. by using valid HTML code.
|
| Hearing impairments |
Barriers
|
Solutions
|
|---|
|
Cannot hear sound at all or at usual volume |
Provide volume control when using sounds, background music, videos with sound etc.
|
|
Cannot read textual content due to illiteracy (some deaf)
|
Provide sign-language alternatives of all textual content for users that only speak sign-language, e.g. signing videos or animations.
|
|
|
Provide text alternatives of all relevant audio e.g. subtitles / captioning for videos.
|
|
|
Avoid user alerts that are only based on sound and provide a visual alternative.
|
| Cognitive impairments |
Barriers
|
Solutions
|
|---|
|
Difficult to understand large amounts of unstructured text
|
Structure large amounts of texts e.g. by using headings and subheadings or by breaking down into several pages
|
|
Confused by animations, sounds etc.
|
Use images, icosn or graphs in a sensible manner to illustrate textual content.
|
|
Confused by unintuitive / badly structured menus
|
Avoid confusing, fast moving flashing animations and unexpected, loud, out-of-context sounds.
|
| Dexterity impairments |
Barriers
|
Solutions
|
|---|
|
Difficulties hitting small elements on the screen with mouse
|
Provide elements of sufficient size and with sufficient margin to adjacent elements
|
|
Cannot use keyboard instead of mouse
|
Alternatively, use flexible layouts that allow users to control the size and formatting of those elements
|
|
Unable to respond in given time limit
|
Provide full support for keyboard-only users, e.g. by defining keyboard shortcuts
|
|
|
Avoid response mechanisms (like pressing a button) that impose time limits or ensure that time limits are not too restricted
|
| Low literacy |
Barriers
|
Solutions
|
|---|
|
Confused by complicated language, jargon
|
Provide easy, clearly structured menus, using labels that are familiar to users
|
|
|
Avoid unnecessarily complicated language and jargon, provide alternative easier descriptions and explanations of jargon or abbreviations.
|
| Slow connections, small displays etc |
Barriers
|
Solutions
|
|---|
|
Long loading times due to large amounts of data
|
Use flexible layouts that can be adapted by users to viewing needs
|
|
Viewing needs require adaptation of layout
|
Make reasonable efforts to ensure that a website remains usable when the transmission of images and multimedia content has been turned off by the user in order to save bandwith.
|
