11 September 2006

Websites with poor accessibility "hurt the underprivileged", health experts in the US have claimed.

Many websites are difficult for persons with disabilities to use, which could lead to many being unable to access vital services, Darrell M West and Edward Alan Miller found.

The pair recently wrote a report for the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, which found poor levels of accessibility in many US health service sites.

Websites which are inaccessible could lead mean that "the advantages of the Internet in terms of information and service availability will be denied to those unable to take advantage of conventional online resources", the report states.

The experts focused their study readability levels, disability access and other key areas.

Accessibility standards, such as the ability to generate text for Braille displays or speech synthesisers and specialist software for individuals with mobility impairments to navigate pages, help to improve websites, the authors claim.

A US court recently found that websites which are inaccessible to the blind are breaching equality guidelines, in what is expected to be a landmark ruling.

© Adfero Ltd

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