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Web Accessibility: An Overlooked Right

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HCI International 2024 – Late Breaking Papers (HCII 2024)

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Abstract

The digitalisation of the public sphere is an ongoing process accelerated by the ubiquitousness of the internet. For the over a billion people estimated to live with an impairment, this digitalisation comes with barriers that can represent an altogether exclusion from the digital realm, hindering their full participation in society. This context should compel stakeholders involved in the development of digital products to consider accessibility as an essential requirement. However, that may not always be the case. This work is the product of a scoping literature review guided by the overarching topic of accessibility in the context of the web. After arguing that disability as a phenomenon might be more prevalent than one would think, it frames web accessibility as a human right that benefits all individuals, while also having important dimensions that businesses would regret ignoring.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by FCT through the LASIGE Research Unit, ref. UIDB/00408/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDB/00408/2020) and ref. UIDP/00408/2020 (https://doi.org/10.54499/UIDP/00408/2020), and by the COST Action LEAD-ME The Leading Platform for European Citizens, Industries, Academia, and Policymakers in Media Accessibility (CA19142).

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  1. LASIGE, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Carlos Simões, Letícia Seixas Pereira & Carlos Duarte

  2. Collaborative Laboratory for Labour, Employment and Social Protection (CoLABOR), Lisbon, Portugal

    Carlos Simões

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  1. Carlos Simões
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Correspondence to Carlos Simões .

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  1. and Technology - Hellas, Foundation for Research, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Margherita Antona

  2. and FORTH - Hellas, University of Crete, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Constantine Stephanidis

  3. Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Qin Gao

  4. Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

    Jia Zhou

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Simões, C., Seixas Pereira, L., Duarte, C. (2025). Web Accessibility: An Overlooked Right. In: Antona, M., Stephanidis, C., Gao, Q., Zhou, J. (eds) HCI International 2024 – Late Breaking Papers. HCII 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15379. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-76818-7_8

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