Technological Access and the Law
Beginning with an overview of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act, this survey identifies the legal issues surrounding equal access to computing facilities on college campuses.
Volume II Number 3, August 1995
Featured Articles
Conference Report: Access to GUIs: Setting Accessibility Standards for Computer Systems
Is it possible to establish objective performance standards to assess a computer system's ability to provide access to graphics-based applications for people who are blind? This was one of the main issues debated at the Access to GUIs conference held in Menlo Park, California, in May of this year. The focus of the conference was access to graphical user interfaces (GUIs) by people who are blind or visually impaired. Sponsored by the Western Blind Rehabilitation Center of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Stanford University's Project Archimedes, and Sensory Access Foundation, the three day series of meetings was attended by vendors of access equipment as well as representatives from universities and corporations. This report discusses the action taken by the Center for Information Technology Accommodations in the area of testing the accessibility of computer systems purchased by the U.S. government.
Maintaining Lynx to the Internet for People with Disabilities: A Call to Action
The trend toward graphical user interfaces, and graphical information in general, has been perceived as threatening to the continued independence of blind and visually impaired computer users. This article identifies the primary obstacles and their possible solutions -- in particular, the importance of the text- based WWW tool, Lynx.