Web accessibility for individuals with cognitive deficits: A comparative study between an existing commercial Web and its cognitively accessible equivalent

Tim Berners-Lee claimed in 2001 that “the power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect”. A considerable amount of work has been done to make the web accessible to those with sensory or motor disability, with an increasing number of government and enterprise intranet webs being “accessible”, and also with some consortiums and groups seriously approaching this commitment. Some authors, such as Harrysson, have already highlighted the need for a cognitively accessible web. However, in spite of good intentions, there has been little work to date that has tackled this task. At least until now, the existing WAI and NI4 recommendations about cognitive disability are extremely difficult (if not impossible) to test, as they are only general recommendations. This article explains an alternative Web that has been constructed and tested on a sample of participants with cognitive disabilities (N = 20) with positive results encouraging us to dedicate more effort to fine tune their requirements regarding specific cognitive deficits and automating the process of creating and testing cognitively accessible web content. This alternative web implies the use of a simplified web browser and an adequate web design. Discussion of the need to have several levels of cognitive accessibility, equivalent (although not identical) content for this collective and the need for testable protocols of accessibility that support these people's needs is also included. This article finishes with conclusions about the potential impact of accessible pages in the daily life of people suffering from cognitive deficits, outlining the features to be considered within a user profile specification that support cognitive difficulties and with reflections about the suitability of Semantic Web Technologies for future developments in this field.

[1]  J. Preece,et al.  The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook , 2003 .

[2]  James A. Mulick,et al.  Manual of diagnosis and professional practice in mental retardation , 1996 .

[3]  Linda M. Bambara,et al.  Opportunities for Daily Choice Making , 1996 .

[4]  Tony Booth,et al.  Index for Inclusion: Developing Learning and Participation in Schools. , 2000 .

[5]  Asunción Gómez-Pérez,et al.  (KA)2: building ontologies for the Internet: a mid-term report , 1999, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[6]  Linda M. Bambara,et al.  Opportunities for Daily Choice Making. Innovations: AAMR Research to Practice Series, Number 8. , 1996 .

[7]  Jakob Nielsen,et al.  Top ten mistakes in web design , 1996 .

[8]  Carole A. Goble,et al.  Accessibility: a Web engineering approach , 2005, WWW '05.

[9]  Tim Berners-Lee,et al.  Weaving The Web: The Original Design And Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web , 1999 .

[10]  HerreraGerardo,et al.  Web accessibility for individuals with cognitive deficits , 2007 .

[11]  B. Harrysson,et al.  How people with developmental disabilities navigate the Internet , 2004 .

[12]  Gary Mesibov,et al.  Accessing the Curriculum for Pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorders: Using the TEACCH Programme to Help Inclusion , 2003 .

[13]  Kay E. Ketzenberger,et al.  American Association on Mental Retardation , 2008 .

[14]  Jakob Nielsen,et al.  Designing web usability , 1999 .

[15]  Óscar Corcho,et al.  A Semantic Portal for the International Affairs Sector , 2004, EKAW.

[16]  C. M. Sperberg-McQueen,et al.  Extensible markup language , 1997 .

[17]  Thomas S. Tullis,et al.  Readability of fonts in the windows environment , 1995, CHI 95 Conference Companion.

[18]  Asunción Gómez-Pérez,et al.  Six challenges for the Semantic Web , 2002, KR 2002.

[19]  J. Sherman,et al.  Balancing the right to habilitation with the right to personal liberties: the rights of people with developmental disabilities to eat too many doughnuts and take a nap. , 1990, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[20]  Carole A. Goble,et al.  "Engineering accessible design": W4A -- international crossdisciplinary workshop on web accessibility 2005 workshop report , 2005, ASAC.

[21]  Ana Pont,et al.  Modeling continuous changes of the user's dynamic behavior in the WWW , 2005, WOSP '05.

[22]  Robert L. Schalock,et al.  Mental Retardation: Definition, Classification, and Systems of Supports , 2002 .

[23]  Jesús Contreras,et al.  Duontology : an Approach to Semantic Portals based on a Domain and Visualization Ontology , 2003 .

[24]  Mark Vaughan,et al.  An Index for Inclusion , 2002 .

[25]  Waldemar Karwowski,et al.  Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design , 2006 .

[26]  GobleCarole,et al.  Engineering accessible design , 2005 .

[27]  Muriel D. Saunders,et al.  Mental retardation: Definition, classification, and systems of supports , 2003 .

[28]  Eric Schopier,et al.  Teaching Spontaneous Communication to Autistic and Developmentally Handicapped Children , 1988 .

[29]  Adrian M. Owen,et al.  Cognitive Deficits in Brain Disorders , 2001 .