Access to information on the World Wide Web for blind and visually impaired people

The Internet gives access for blind and visually impaired users to previously unobtainable information via Braille or speech synthesis interpretation. This paper looks at how three search engines, AltaVista, Yahoo! and Infoseek presented their information to a small group of visually impaired and blind users and how accessible individual Internet pages are. Two participants had varying levels of partial sight and two Subjects were blind and solely reliant on speech synthesis output. Subjects were asked for feedback on interface design at various stages of their search and any problems they encountered were noted. The barriers to access that were found appear to come about by lack of knowledge and thought by the page designers themselves. An accessible page does not have to be dull. By adhering to simple guidelines, visually impaired users would be able to access information more effectively than would otherwise be possible. Visually disabled people would also have the same opportunity to access knowledge as their sighted colleagues.