WEB ACCESSIBILITY, ENVIRONMENT, QUALITY OF LIFE, IN THE “LIGHT” OF UNIVERSAL DESIGN

Universal Design is for making possible social participation and for accessing to environments, services, programs, and technologies by the widest possible range of users, such as poor and marginalized people and persons with disabilities. The Web is an important resource in many aspects of life and it should be accessible also to people with disabilities in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity to everyone. Web accessibility means that people with disabilities that affect access to the Web can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web. Different kinds of “disabilities” affect Web, making part of a large scenarios of people with disabilities using the Web. Till today, most Web sites and Web software have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for many people with disabilities to use the Web. Designing Web sites and software that are flexible to meet different user needs, preferences, and situations is the key principle of Web accessibility. This flexibility also benefits people without disabilities in certain situations, such as people with changing abilities due to aging. There has been extensive development and adoption of the WAI guidelines for Web accessibility for people with disabilities, but there has been a misunderstanding about these WAI guidelines to the needs of older people with functional disabilities. In this scenario of accessibility, there is an aspect that could be studied more deeply. Considering the emerging needs of older people, and the characteristics of web accessibility, there is a need of experimental results to be considered as referring points for the correct evaluation of accessibility in partially sighted persons. Our work wants to be a contribute to the studies on people with visual disabilities. Referring to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 (criterion 1.4- use of colour) we have implemented an experimental procedure based on independent variables like: colour, contrast, lighting, varying following discrete parameters; dependent variables like: errors, reaction times, subjective evaluations (recorded by the means of questionnaires based on likert scales), and grouping variables like: kind of visual impairment, age and general cognitive skills (measured by specific psychometric tests). All sets of data were submitted at an analysis of variance, for the study of significative differences between means. First results indicated important differences related to kind of pathology, type of settings (system of light, colour, contrast adopted) and behaviour observed by the means of errors committed and subjective evaluation of facility of use and accessibility of Web contents. With the development of this study is our intention to contribute at the sharing of protocols and guidelines for the correct evaluations of the role of light-colour-contrast in the accessibility of web objects.