Accessibility

 

JDS Accessibility ?

Accessibility is everyone's responsibility, and the purpose of this document is to provide general accessibility guidelines for developers and designers.

One in four adults in the United States has a disability. Although not all disabilities impact internet use, businesses would be unwise to purposely exclude 25, 15, or even five percent of their potential customers. In education and government, in many cases it is illegal discrimination.

 

Disability Categories

Visual
Visual

blindness, low vision, color blindness, using a screen reader or related assistive tech for lifestyle reasons (e.g. long car commute), machine readability and screen scraping technologies

  • Hearing
    Hearing

    deafness, hearing impairment, speech impairment, using closed captioning or other assistive features for lifestyle reasons (e.g. coworking in a loud coffee shop).
     

  • Mobility
    Mobility

    mobility impairments, repetitive stress injuries, power users who love keyboard shortcuts, busy parents holding a sleeping child while trying to operate a computer with one hand, etc.
     

  • Cognitive
    Cognitive

    including short-term memory issues, dyslexia, learning disabilities, trying to work or consume content while distracted or multitasking, etc.

     

    • Each category requires a deliberate strategy in content design. Often, these strategies promote overall usability, beyond people with disabilities. Everyone benefits from helpful illustrations, logically-organized content and intuitive navigation.Similarly, while users with disabilities need captions and transcripts, they can be helpful to anyone who uses multimedia silent or noisy environments.