Accessibility Matters -- Is Our Aim True?

Designing and developing digital products for everyone should obviously include persons with disabilities, but this is made challenging if the hardware and software those customers are using isn't even close to what the rest of the market is working with.

Recently, a survey about screen reader usage– the sixth of its kind since 2009 – was released by the organization Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM). Though the 2,515 respondents weren't representative of the global community (most respondents were based in North America and many were English-speaking), it produced some fascinating results.

Internet browsers most popular with persons with disabilities are not at all as well-liked in the wider mainstream community. Internet Explorer version 10 or higher, for instance, was the most popular browser in the WebAIM survey with 34.9 per cent of users reporting they used it most often. This number increased to more than 50 per cent when IE versions 6 through 9 were accounted for.

By contrast, according to W3C School statistics on browser usage, only 6.5 per cent of the mainstream population was using any version of IE during the same month the WebAIM survey was active. Mozilla Firefox was nine per cent more popular with respondents to the WebAIM survey than the respondents to the W3C. Google Chrome, the most popular browser in the mainstream according to W3C, was shown to be an astounding 10 times more popular in the wider population than it is for users with disabilities.

On the operating system side of things, the numbers were equally imbalanced. Users of Apple devices outnumbered Android users by three to one on the WebAIM survey; the reverse was true for the W3C data on the use of operating systems. There were twice as many Mac users in the mainstream than in the disabled community, but only eight per cent fewer users of Windows.

Seeing numbers like these, it's hardly surprising that accessibility implementation is such a challenge. Why would developers ensure compatibility with unpopular or out-dated browsers and operating systems? Developers who don't hear from users with disabilities may not realize this group exists and requires accessible applications – all because this user base isn't able to access the same platforms due to real or perceived accessibility challenges.

For instance, Google's applications are widely popular in the mainstream but are notorious for poor accessibility. If their numbers continue to rise in the mainstream, the disabled user base risks falling even further behind the technology, skills, education and productivity eight-ball. On the other hand, Firefox has become much more accessible in recent years but has a perception barrier of inaccessibility to overcome.

I'm curious as to why these gaps exist and what can be done about them. Certainly the concerns over inaccessibility of new browsers must be addressed, as many are more mind over matter. In the case of Chrome, however, real accessibility issues must be addressed by Google.

Screen reader vendors have to keep up with the times and make their technology work with browsers beyond Internet Explorer. Many have, but highlighting their product's compatibility with a variety of browsers is essential for the beginner user who is unlikely to try a new product without assurances that it will be accessible to them. Developers making their products compatible on a variety of platforms are ideal as well, but with such an imbalance I feel the browser and adaptive technology companies should each share more responsibility in making their products play well together rather than leaving it to smaller-scale developers.

The positive in all this is that data now exists about screen reader users. WebAIM can show trends in its results since the first survey in 2009, and knowing how things change is almost as essential as knowing the current state of affairs. Anyone working in the accessibility field is much more informed now.

The next step is to get the developers of Internet browsers and screen readers themselves to keep up with the mainstream trends so such large differences in technology use between disabled and able-bodied users can be narrowed.