Title: Diversity of Abilities
Course: Web Accessibility MOOC for Educators > Section: Creating Accessible HTML Pages

Each individual is unique. People have diverse abilities, skills, tools, preferences, and expectations that can impact how they use the Web. 8.5% of the population has a disability that affects computer use…not including those with cognative/learning disabilities,color blindness,etc. For instance, consider the following aspects:

- Many people develop age-related impairments. While they share the same functional requirements as others with disabilities, sometimes there are significant differences in the use of assistive technologies, the level of computer skills, or in the use of the Web in general.
- Some people have combinations of different kinds of disabilities, which may limit their approaches for interacting with the Web. For instance, someone who is deaf and has low vision might benefit from captions for audio, but only if these captions have adjustable size and color.
- Some people have health conditions that may affect their stamina, dexterity, or concentration. For instance, some may experience fatigue, pain, or other symptoms that could affect their physical use of the computer or limit the duration or extent of their use of the Web.
- Some people may be experiencing progressive or recurring functional limitations that impact their use of the Web differently at different times. For instance, some may need particular accessibility features on one day, and others or none on another day, depending on their condition.
- Temporary impairments: Some people may be experiencing temporary impairments such as those that may occur due to an accident, surgery, or medication. They may not know about accessibility solutions, may not know how to use accessibility features, and may be unaware of their own needs.
- Some people may be experiencing constraints due to their surrounding or due to other situational aspects. For instance, they may be in a loud environment and unable to hear audio, in bright sunlight and unable to see a screen, or they may not be able to afford some technologies.

Functional Needs

Websites and web tools that are designed for people with a broad range of abilities benefit everyone, including people without disabilities. It is therefore important to consider the broad diversity of functional needs rather than to categorize people according to medical classifications.

- Auditory disabilities range from mild or moderate hearing impairments in one or both ears ("hard of hearing"), to substantial and uncorrectable impairment of hearing in both ears ("deafness"). Some people with auditory disabilities can hear sounds but sometimes not sufficiently to understand all speech, especially when there is background noise. This includes people using hearing aids or other approaches to improve the sound.
- Cognitive and neurological disabilities involve disorders of any part of the nervous system, including the brain and the peripheral nervous system. This can impact how well people hear, move, see, speak, and understand information. Cognitive and neurological disabilities do not necessarily affect the intelligence of a person.
- Physical disabilities (sometimes called "motor disabilities") include weakness, limitations of muscular control (such as involuntary movements including tremors, lack of coordination, or paralysis), limitations of sensation, joint problems (such as arthritis), pain that impedes movement, or missing limbs.
- Speech disabilities include difficulty producing speech that is recognizable by others or by voice recognition software. For instance, the loudness or clarity of someone's voice might be difficult to understand.

Tips:

- There are additional supporting materials available on the Web, such as videos of how people with disabilities use the Web .
- For instructions on how to customize your particular web browser and computer setup, see Better Web Browsing: Tips for Customizing Your Computer.
- If you develop personas , you can use this information to help develop them, per Using WAI Material.

How People with Disabilities Use the Web. Shadi Abou-Zahra, ed. Copyright © 2012 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio). Status: Draft Updated 1 August 2012. http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/people-use-web/Overview