Skip to main content
Log in

Reflections and proposals to improve the efficiency of accessibility efforts

  • Communication
  • Published:
Universal Access in the Information Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper presents a critical analysis of the current socio-economic situation associated with the technology used by disabled people. It explains how companies, funding agencies, and users can promote good practices for overcoming existing barriers. In addition, the article discusses different considerations with the intention of forcing the reader to rethink of accessibility more as a philosophical change rather than a technological contribution.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Cerf, V.G.: Why is accessibility so hard? Commun. ACM 55, 7 (2012). doi:10.1145/2366316.2366341

    Google Scholar 

  2. Ballesteros, E.: MaGUI. http://magui.info (2011)

  3. Pascual, A., Ribera, M., Granollers, T.: Perception of accessibility errors to raise awareness among web 2.0 users. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Interacción Persona-Ordenador (INTERACCION ‘12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 16, 2 pages. doi:10.1145/2379636.2379652 (2012)

  4. Raising the Floor. GPII. http://gpii.net/

  5. StatCounter Global Stats. http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-yearly-2012-2012-bar

  6. Microsoft. Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 Support Ends. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/endofsupport.aspx

  7. NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA): http://www.nvaccess.org

  8. Berners-Lee, T.: Scientific American. Long live the web: a call for continued open standards and neutrality. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web (2010)

  9. Mobile Manufacturers Forum. Mobile Accessibility. Find phones. http://www.mobileaccessibility.info/findphones.cfm

  10. Unitat de Tècniques Augmentatives de Comunicació. https://sites.google.com/site/utacub/

  11. Alcantud, F., Guarinos, I., Roig, R., et al.: Inventario y descripción de las soluciones de accesibilidad web existentes para personas con discapacidad Física y Sensorial (1st ed.). [CD]. Editorial Marfil S.A. ISBN: 978-84-268-1591-0 http://roderic.uv.es/handle/10550/23509 (2011)

  12. Abril, D. Gil, S., Sebastián, M. Mi interfaz de acceso. Madrid: CEAPAT-IMSERSO. http://www.tecnoaccesible.net/node/2496 (2013)

  13. Treviranus, J., Richards, J. Ruplall, S., Christanto, V.: Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC). Accessible Digital Office Documents (ADOD). http://adod.idrc.ocad.ca/ (2010)

  14. Bajo Coste Encuentro internacional en tecnología de bajo coste. IMSERSO-España. http://www.crmfalbacete.org/recursosbajocoste/default.asp

  15. Apple: iOS Human Interfaces Guidelines. http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/Introduction/Introduction.html (2013)

  16. Android API Guides. User interface guidelines. http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/index.html

  17. Daisy Consortium. Daisy. Epub 3 Developments. http://www.daisy.org/daisy-epub-3-developments

  18. Lecshare. http://www.lecshare.com

  19. Chisholm, W.A., Shawn Lawton, H. (2005). Interdependent components of web accessibility. Proceedings of the 2005 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A) (W4A ‘05). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 31–37. doi:10.1145/1061811.1061818

Download references

Acknowledgments

The work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the project InDAGuS-UX: Toward the sustainable development of open government data infrastructures with geospatial features—User Experience Research Project (TIN2012-37826-C02-02) and by the University of Lleida for the predoctoral fellowship granted to Afra Pascual.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elena Ballesteros.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ballesteros, E., Ribera, M., Pascual, A. et al. Reflections and proposals to improve the efficiency of accessibility efforts. Univ Access Inf Soc 14, 583–586 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-014-0356-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-014-0356-1

Keywords

Navigation