How People with Disabilities Use Digital Technology.
Ade, reporter with limited use of his arms.
Hello! I’m Ade,
I’m quadriplegic, which means I have limited movement
in my arms as well as my legs.
The techonology I use is really important to me.
I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts,
especially for the programs that I use often.
For example, scrolling a page is much easier with the arrow keys on
the keyboard than by clicking on that button in the scroll bar.
Unfortunately, many websites and apps
don’t work well with my keyboard.
Often what has focus is not clear
or it jumps around completely out of order.
Sometimes that doesn’t work well because some websites
and apps don’t work in landscape orientation,
which is how I setup my tablet so that the
buttons are big enough for me to click.
While I can use a keyboard and joystick,
I can’t use them for long periods because it’s tiring.
So, I recently started using speech control software as well.
It allows me to dictate text instead of typing,
and to say certain commands instead of clicking.
It’s really hard to learn a new way of working after so many years
but I’ve been patient with it and I’m slowly getting used to it.
The most difficult thing is buttons without labels.
It is not clear which voice commands will activate them.
You can help make technology accessible to me.
Accessibility: It’s about people.
For more information from the Web Accessibility Initiative on How
People with Disabilities Use Digital Technology,
visit w3.org/WAI/people