How People with Disabilities use Digital Technology.
Marta,
a marketing assistant
who is Deaf and blind.
Hi!
I'm Marta,
a marketing assistant at my school for the Deaf.
I'm Deaf-blind.
I was born Deaf
and have progressive vision loss,
which means I can still see things
if they're large and up-close
but I see less and less each year.
As a Deaf child,
I learned sign language early on.
This is why technology
is so important to me-
it allows me to communicate with more people.
At home,
I have a computer
that can enlarge my documents up to 20 times.
I have a big screen
but can still only see a very small portion of the screen,
and an even smaller portion of the documents
because it's like looking through a magnification lens.
I can find my way around documents
with headings and sections that look different.
For example, this briefing sheet uses
a color for the headings
that is different from the main content,
which makes it easier for me to recognize them.
Oh, and I'm learning to use braille too.
Braille are those dots that you read
with your fingers,
and I have this really cool device
called a “refreshable braille display” -
it's a small device
that I can take with me everywhere,
unlike my computer.
It has apps for email, web and chat,
and some have a special keyboard
for typing in braille.
I read the braille characters
in a row on the device,
which I'm slowly getting used to.
It's always difficult to learn to use something new at first
but I'm getting better at reading and typing braille.
But not all websites and apps work well with magnification
or on my braille display.
Like when I need to look up the bus schedule
to meet up with my friends -
that table doesn't work well when I enlarge it on my phone.
And forget about trying to read it in braille.
I can't tell what row or column I'm in
and it just jumps all over the place!
It makes me nervous
because I can't as easily ask for help
from people around me while I'm out,
so I've been learning how to speak up
and ask companies for more accessible websites and apps
to help me stay independent.
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