Social accessibility: The challenge of improving web accessibility through collaboration

Abstract

There are billions of people who face problems in accessing webpages, including people with disabilities, elderly people, and illiterate people in developing countries. The needs for accessible webpages have become too broad to be left only to Web developers. The wisdom of crowds has become part of a key strategy to combine various skills and knowledge into a community that can address the needs for accessibility. Social Accessibility is one such project for visually impaired people, which has been operating for more than a year, producing findings and new challenges. Based on our experiences, the collaborative approach can work well and be expanded for people with other problems such as poor hearing, aged eyes, and reading problems. © 2010 ACM.