Not having access to information in a format that people with vision impairments can read is a barrier to independence, making a service inaccessible.

Alternate Formats

Some key ways of making information accessible to all is by having it available in alternate formats such as Braille, Large print and Audio. One good example of this is having a provision of a menu card also in Braille.

E-Accessibility

Electronic accessibility, or E-Accessibility, is the ease by which people with disabilities especially people with vision impairments use information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet. Web sites need to be presented so that disabled users can access the information. For example:

• for people who are blind, web sites need to be interpreted by software programmes which read text aloud;
• for people who have low vision, web pages need adjustable sized fonts and sharply contrasting colours; and
• for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, audio content should be accompanied by text versions of the dialogue.

The standards used generally for Web Accessibility is Guidelines, prepared by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).