Quantification of accessibility: Guidance for more objective access guidelines

Abstract

Accessibility guidelines first began as recommendations or advice to designers interested in creating products that were more accessible to users with disabilities. Over the past two decades, societies have found that relying on voluntary efforts by industry was insufficient and began creating laws and regulations regarding accessibility. However these new regulations were based on the earlier voluntary recommendations, which were often qualitative in nature. For those guidelines where there were no clear objective criteria, it has created problems both for companies trying to conform and by those trying to evaluate conformance. Described here are several efforts to create more useful and objective measures to replace previous general recommendations in the areas of photosensitive seizure disorders, contrast, and provisions relating to low vision. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.