Today (3/12/2019) International Day of People with Disabilities (IDPWD) is being celebrated across the world.
IDPWD exists to help identify the barriers that prevent people with disabilities from taking a fully active part in society and to help everyone to work together to overcome them.
According to Wade Lange, Managing Director of International Day of People with Disabilities, it’s not just a celebration, it’s an opportunity to plan for real change that helps people with disabilities to achieve their potential.
He said: “International Day of People with Disabilities is more than just a day-long celebration. It is a platform to create strategies which support the employment of people with disability and to assist them to reach their social and economic potential.”
IDPWD is a global campaign that takes a global approach to physical and digital inclusion because it’s a global issue.
Too many inaccessible websites
The scale of disability across the world can be surprising to some. But according to the World Health Organisation about 15% of the world’s population has some form of disability. However, this global estimate for disability is rising due to population ageing, the rapid spread of chronic diseases, plus improvements in the methodologies used to measure disability. In fact, people with disabilities make up the largest minority group in the world, yet evidence shows that many people with disabilities still face digital exclusion.
For instance, The WebAIM Million study of one million homepages found that 97.8% of homepages failed to comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are the globally accepted guidelines to follow for web accessibility. The study also found that 85.3% of homepages (852,868) failed to comply with WCAG due to low contrast text, whilst 68% (679,964) of homepages failed to comply with WCAG due to missing alternative text for images.
A global approach to digital inclusion
Taking a global approach to digital inclusion reminds us that people with disabilities live and work right around the world, meaning that people have very different, language and accessibility requirements.
Research by GSMA, which represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, highlights how mobile phone use in developing nations is crucial for helping people with disabilities to access digital communications and the internet. When you consider that 80% of people with disabilities live in developing countries, it also underlines the fact that global brands need global accessibility and language solutions to reach people with disabilities across the globe.
The Recite Me assistive toolbar can help make your website accessible for people with a disability and translate your site’s content into over 100 different languages at the click of a button.
The translation options make it ideal for people who don’t speak English as their first language, including those with disabilities. And because the cloud-based software works on any mobile device it’s ideal for helping brands to make their websites and web content accessible for people with disabilities across the globe.
Ultimately, IDPWD is the perfect time for all global brands to ensure your website and web content is fully accessible for everyone across the world, regardless of their language or accessibility requirements.
100’s of organisations around the world already use Recite Me to help make their websites accessible for people with disabilities . To find out more contact the team or book a demo.
