Accessibility of educational software: A problem still to be solved

Abstract

In recent years the issue of accessibility of digital resources has been increasingly studied by the world of research, training, associations and law-makers. If educational software is built without keeping in mind the principles of Design for all, might be considered a new obstacle to learning and an occasion to highlight the limits and not the potential of disabled people. Starting from this, we have carried out a survey among more than four thousand (italian and foreign) educational softwares available on our Educational Software Documentation Service. The result - as one could predict - shows that there are very few software products that can be used for educational purposes which completely satisfy the main accessibility criteria. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009.