8 March 2007

Companies may not be aware how many potential users suffer from visual impairments, one expert has claimed.

Christopher J Andrews, a geographical information system specialist and Senior Consultant at MWH Global, claimed that at least 5.5 per cent of web users are colour blind.

Writing for Directions Magazine, the expert also noted that data from the American Foundation for the Blind shows 1.5 million web users to be blind or visually impaired.

Furthermore, many individuals who are not considered to be blind need to adjust onscreen font sizes in order to read the text on a page, said Mr Andrews.

"The population of web users with some sort of visual impairment may be larger than you realise," he asserted.

Earlier in the year, Jakarta Post author Arnawa Widagda claimed that standard web pages are "notoriously difficult" for visually-impaired web users to navigate, urging web designers to adopt World Wide Web Consortium accessibility standards when creating a site.

© Adfero Ltd

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