The impact of digital accessibility on the user experience of people with cognitive impairments
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17411/jacces.v15i2.612Abstract
The Internet has become an essential part of everyday life and plays a central role in accomplishing various tasks. Despite existing guidelines and laws on digital accessibility, people with disabilities repeatedly encounter barriers on the Internet that make it difficult for them to use. This work examines the importance of accessible websites and aims to compare the normative guidelines of digital accessibility with the real-world experiences of users with cognitive impairments. To explore how specific aspects of digital accessibility affect the user-friendliness of websites for people with cognitive impairments, we conducted a qualitative study. Twelve semi-structured interviews were carried out to examine the target group’s response to three websites that differed in their level of digital accessibility. Three aspects of digital accessibility were examined in more detail: a) easy-to-read language, b) consistent navigation, and c) pause, stop, and hide. The results show that easy-to-read language and clear navigation significantly improve user-friendliness, while moving content has no negative influence. The study results make it clear that there is a lack of understanding of how people with disabilities perceive digital accessibility. The findings of this study can help promote the development of further guidelines for designing accessible websites and enable the digital participation of all users.
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