Accessibility Issues for Visually Disabled Users
There are varying degrees of visual impairment for a website designer to take account for when they create a new website; these levels of disabilities can range from colour blindness and dyslexia to total blindness.
Issues that may take affect for colour blind and dyslexic users of a system would include the following aspects:-
Colours
- Colour of text
- Colour of background
Colours strongly affect colour blind users and dyslexic users find that the user’s ability to read the text on the screen would also depend on the colour scheme.
Text
- Font typefaces
- Font size
Different typefaces are more difficult for visually impaired users to read than other users. Dyslexic users would find that specific fonts will impede their ability to read the on-screen text.
Images
- Size of pictures
- Colour of pictures
- Placement of pictures on screen
Depending on the location of the text that relates to a specific image, different user groups require different circumstances. For instance a user with dyspraxia or dyslexia may find it incredibly difficult to associate a specific image with a paragraph of text if it is not located precisely by their requirements.
These above aspects would affect a visually impaired user in different ways and by designing a website so that the users could manage the colours and fonts themselves would allow for the maximum flexibility that would be needed for the wide variety of users that are going to access the website.