According to the CDC, “Disability inclusion means understanding the relationship between the way people function and how they participate in society, and making sure everybody has the same opportunities to participate in every aspect of life to the best of their abilities and desires.” People with disabilities are integral parts of our world and community, yet they often face inaccessible or unwelcoming spaces online. The word disability itself is a limiting term, as it refers to an immense spectrum of experiences. Disabilities can affect a person’s auditory, cognitive, neurological, linguistic, visual, emotional or physical abilities moving through the world, both online and offline.
According to Ashley Eisenmenger in Ableism 101, “ableism is the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior” or that the average person is without a disability by default. Ableism is the underlying force which creates assumptions that a person by default is non-disabled. Ableism can also contribute to the oversight of not considering whether online spaces are accessible. This is why a stronger awareness of web access (or lack thereof) must be part of our collective consciousness. According to Manish Dudharejia, in 9 Ways to Make Your Website More Accessible, “Web accessibility applies to all disabilities that affect access to the web,” meaning that we need to include much more than just measures for visually or hearing impaired users as we move towards full inclusivity in online spaces. Accessibility measures like alternative text or “alt text” (which provides a description of images) or captioning during video meetings (to provide readable text in real time) have started to become more commonplace, but this is in no way an end point.
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