| [Narrator:] How people with disabilities use the web; Ade, reporter with limited use of his arms. |
How People with Disabilities Use Digital Technology: Ade |
| [Alan:] Hello! I’m Ade. I have a spinal cord injury from an accident X years ago. I’m quadriplegic, which means I have limited movement in my arms as well as my legs. |
We see Alan speaking directly to us viewers. We briefly see a total of Ade sitting in a wheelchair and gesturing to show he his hands and fingers as he speaks about them. [Viewers might notice his hands and fingers don’t move as he gestures with his arms.] |
| The techonology I use is really important to me. I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts, espeicially for programs that I often use. For example, scrolling a page is much easier with the arrow keys on the keyboard than by clicking on that small button in the scroll bars. |
[Continuation from previous scene.] We see Alan switching back from using the joystick to the keyboard to type in something brief, then back again to the joystick to continue navigating (e.g. clicking “next” button after typing in something brief on a form). We see Alan using the down-arrow key to scroll down a web page (e.g. the newly loaded page after clicking “next). This back-and-forth switching seems strenuous. |
| Unfortunately, many websites and apps don’t work well with my keyboard. The Tab-key should take me through each page object by object in a logical order. Often what has focus is not clear it jumps around completely out of order. |
[Continuation from previous scene.] We see Alan now using the Tab-key to move between objects on the web page (e.g. a form in the newly loaded page, the one he was scrolling on). The focus indicator first moves in a logical order (e.g. from “street address” to “post code”), then it jumps somewhere completely unexpected (e.g. “use same as shipping address” at the top of the form, which disables the text fields that Alan just filled in when he check it). |
| Sometimes websites and apps work better on my tablet than on the computer because I can click the buttons and links on the touch screen with my knuckles. I can also type the same way using the on-screen keyboard. Sometimes that doesn’t work well because some websites and apps don’t work in landscape orientation, which is how I setup my tablet so that the buttons are big enough for me to click. |
[New scene.] We see Alan using a tablet computer in landscape orientation (e.g. mounted to his wheelchair or on a stand). We see it first works well, then it doesn’t anymore (e.g. Alan clicks the icon of his email program; reads a new email from a friend; follows a link in that email; the website opens in portrait orientation – sideways for Alan). |
| While I can use a keyboard and joystick, I can’t use them for long periods because it’s tiring. So, I recently started using speech control software as well. It allows me to dictate text instead of typing, and to say certain commands instead of clicking. It’s really hard to learn a new way of working after so many years but I’ve been patient with it and I’m slowly getting used to it. The most difficult thing is buttons without labels – it is not clear what words would activate them. |
[New scene.] We see Alan speaking (we only see his mouth move but don’t hear what he is saying), and see the words appearing on the screen. We see the words being corrected on the screen (e.g. “white flour” being corrected to “white flowers” in the search field of an online grocery shop). We zoom in on a small icon button beside the search field with no visual label (eg. an icon of binoculars or another icon for “search”). [We don’t really see what happens next but from the narration and the way that nothing happens visually, some viewers might assume there is something wrong with the button.] |
| [Alan:] You can help make technology accessible to me. [Narrator:] Accessibility: It’s about people. |
[New scene.] We see Alan speaking his line directly to us, as in the first scene [documentary style into the camera, in the same style and continuing the first scene]. We see more and more protagonists from the other videos appear on the screen [to illustrate many people] as the narrator speaks their line. |
| For more information on how people with disabilities use the web, visit w3.org/WAI |
[End plate.] We see the URL from the narration. |