Accessibility Handbook

Chapter 1. Complete Blindness

Since the Internet is a visual medium, it should come as no surprise that most of the efforts of making a website accessible fall under visual accessibility. This group has a variety of alternate ways to access web pages; they might use a screen reader that reads the content of a page back to them. They might override the default styling on a website, allowing them to use colors that are higher contrast or fonts that are easier to read. They might change the scale of a website, increasing the font size until it’s legible.

The blind are particularly impacted by an inaccessible web. A page might be structured in a way that’s nonsensical if a user is using a screen reader. They might miss out on vital information in a graph or image. They might have to sit through listening to the navigation with every page load.

The goal of this section is to create a website that is accessible to a screen reader. A user should not lose any content or function simply because of the tool they are using.

Definition

Though there are many ways to determine complete blindness—from the legally blind who can’t drive without glasses to the medically blind who have completely lost all sight—for the purposes of this book we define complete blindness as a user who is using a screen reader to access websites. Why not simply define it as those that have completely lost all their sight? Many people who have extremely little vision choose to use a screen reader. Screen readers are also ...