Roughly one in five of the UK population is disabled – 18% – according to the 2001 census, so widening accessibility to include disabled people could result in a considerable increase in the number of people who can use a particular product.
In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in 1995, made it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people as employees, as students, and as consumers of goods and services. Under the act, employers, education establishments, and providers of goods and services need to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to avoid discriminating against disabled people.
Where ‘reasonable’, websites, software, buildings and other entities involved in employment, education or other services, need to be made accessible.
An important aspect of the Act is that the needs of disabled people should be anticipated rather than waiting for a disabled person to need access. This means that a provider of a service cannot justify not making an adjustment by saying that they do not have any disabled customers; they need to anticipate that they may have disabled customers in the future.
This is a key aspect for interaction design as it means that if there is any chance of members of the user group being disabled, then action must be taken to take their needs into account.
This underscores the importance of understanding your users and customers and their goals.
A copy of the act is available here: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/ukpga_19950050_en_1
Important information can be found here: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeople/RightsAndObligations/DisabilityRights/DG_4001068
Filed under: H810 Week 1 | Tagged: accessibility, census, DDA
