A lesson from COVID-19 on inaccessibility of web-based information for disabled populations worldwide

Many government websites and mobile content are inaccessible for people with vision, hearing, and cognitive disabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted these disparities when health authority website information, critical in providing resources for curbing the spread of the virus, remained inacc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inbioRxiv
Main Authors Dror, Amiel A, Layous, Eli, Mizrachi, Matti, Daoud, Amani, Eisenbach, Netanel, Morozov, Nicole G, Srouji, Samer, Avraham, Karen B, Sela, Eyal
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 17.08.2020
Subjects
Cognitive ability
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Handicapped accessibility
Pandemics
Web sites
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Summary:Many government websites and mobile content are inaccessible for people with vision, hearing, and cognitive disabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted these disparities when health authority website information, critical in providing resources for curbing the spread of the virus, remained inaccessible for disabled populations. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines provide comparatively universally accepted guidelines for website accessibility. We utilized these parameters to examine the number of countries with or without accessible health authority websites. The resulting data indicate a dearth of countries with websites accessible for persons with disabilities. Methods of information dissemination must take into consideration individuals with disabilities, particularly in times of global health crises. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
DOI:10.1101/2020.08.16.252676