- Vision
- Hearing
- Speech communication
- Learning, cognition, and developmental
- Mobility, seating, and positioning
- Daily Living
- Environmental Adaptations
- Vehicle modification and transportation
- Computers and related peripherals
- Recreation, sports, and leisure 
- Augmented Reality
- AI as Assistive Technology
- Assistive technology for students with disabilities

Categories of Assistive Technology

Devices that help maintain or improve the functional capabilities and/or independence of individuals with disabilities.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Georgetown University

Pepperdine University

- Assistive Technology
- Information Hierarchy
- Color and Contrast
- Accessible Layout
- Writing and Accessibility Text
- Imagery
- Sound and Motion

Elements of Accessible Design

Ensuring that all people have the ability to utilize a product, facility, or service, regardless of any disability they may have. Accessibility may include the modification of existing infrastructure, products, or services or designing them with disabled users in mind.

Accessibility

Material Design Documentation

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2020, September 15). Disability and Health Inclusion Strategies. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/disability-strategies.html

Disability and Health Inclusion Strategies

Organizing your information in a way that's intuitive helps users easily navigate through your app and help determine what's important. Information can be emphasized through things like color, shape, text, and motion to add clarity.

Information Hierarchy

Utilizing different colors and contrasts can help improve your user's ability to see, interpret, interact, and understand your app's contents. This is extremely helpful for those with low vision or colorblindness.

Color and Contrast

It's important to consider how your app scales content and responds to various devices and user inputs. These greatly influence the ability for your user to interpret and interact with your design.

Accessible Layout

It is important to structure your contents in a way that utilizes accessibility text or, text that is used by screen reader accessibility software. Screen readers are able to read aloud the on-screen text as well as assorted elements (ie. buttons), including both visible and non-visible alternative text.

Writing and Accessibility Text

Different image types will have different accessibility guidelines and different contexts on where it's appropriate to apply these guidelines.
- Decorative images
- Informative images
- Functional images

Types of Imagery

Sound and motion can be incredibly helpful for users to help navigate through your page with or without a screen reader. However, accessibility for screen readers should still be considered when implementing these elements.

Sound and Motion

When using standard platform controls and semantic HTML, apps will automatically contain the markup and code needed to work with a platform's assistive technology. By meeting each platform's accessibility standards and supporting its assistive technology (ie. shortcuts, structure), you can give users an efficient experience. You can test your design with the platform's accessibility settings turned on - this should be done both during and after implementation.

Implementing Elements of Accessible Design

Accommodations refer to adaptations that are tailored to a specific individual's unique needs. Whereas, accessibility refers to design choices that are not created with a specific individual in mind but still attempt to make a product, service, or environment accessible to as many people as possible regardless of disability.
Accessibility is a more general approach while accommodations are a more individualized approach.

Difference between Accessibility and Accommodation

Accessibility is often difficult to measure or define, due to the many types of accessibility that exist. A structure may be accessible to someone with one type of disability, but not to someone with another. Additionally, there are many different criteria that can be used to determine or measure accessibility.

Challenges in Determining Accessibility

Captioning is the process of displaying text while a video is being played. Typically, the text will be a transcription of the video's audio, noting who is speaking along with sound effects and important musical cues. This helps to make films, television shows, and other video recordings accessible to those who are hard of hearing or deaf.

Captioning

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. § 794) requires that the housing owner/landlord is required to pay for any accommodations as well as fix them. The exception is that if the person demonstrates that providing payment for this would be a burden. Section 504 and the ADA requires that governmental bodies will be financially responsible for accommodations for public housing and other federally assisted provided housing, 24 C.F.R. part 8, 24 C.F.R. part 9. 

Payment for Reasonable Accommodation

Created in 1973, the U.S. Access Board is a federal agency that serves to ensure accessibility in federally funded properties/buildings. The agency is responsible for determining accessibility standards when it comes to built environments, vehicles used for transportation, equipment in the medical field, tools for communicating, as well as IT. 

United States Access Board 

Audio Description is the process of narrating certain actions or details that are normally seen visually, such as what a character is wearing. This process is often provided with films, television shows, stage plays, museums to accommodate people with visual impairments. It is often provided via an alternate audio track on a DVD or a handheld audio player.

Audio Description

Disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and mental health have a large impact on people's experience in the medical field within the context of health equity. Lived experience and differences should be placed at the forefront of this discussion. These four identities affect health equity through comorbidity and the experience of stigma (directly or indirectly). 

Health Inequity of Disability, Mental Health, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity

The COVID 19 pandemic impacted all people in profound ways, however, people with disabilities have been impacted more harshly and at a much higher level than people without disabilities. People of different disabilities were also impacted in varying ways. It is important to keep in mind that while these challenges are COVID specific, many of the remedies can be incorporated into daily life to make day to day living easier. 

Pandemic and Disability: Challenges Faced and Role of Technology

Children with disabilities are much more likely to need mental health support than their non-disabled peers. Despite this, children with disabilities are very rarely diagnosed with and receive treatment for mental health issues. 

Mental Health Services Use Among School-Aged Children with Disabilities

Around the world, one billion people live with disabilities. This report argues that these individuals are being left behind regarding health. Lack of access not only goes against the rights of people with disabilities under international law but also poses a challenge to achieving better health services for one billion people with disabilities, which is essential for achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Sustainable Development Goal 3. Most of these individuals are in low and middle-income countries and the poorest sections of society. People with disabilities encounter more obstacles in obtaining healthcare services and have less health coverage, leading to poorer health outcomes due to their higher healthcare needs.

Access to Healthcare

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 is a key piece of U.S. legislation that prohibits discrimination against individuals based on their disability. The law is founded on the principle that people with disabilities are capable of making valuable contributions to organizations. A central requirement of the ADA is that employers must provide reasonable accommodations to help employees with disabilities perform their jobs, so long as these accommodations do not cause undue hardship to the employer.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990

This article examines how people with disabilities experience the design of public urban spaces in a social housing area in Aarhus, Denmark. Drawing on 14 universal design walks conducted with 17 participants, the study shows how ableist design practices create physical, mental, and social constraints in everyday life.

Experiences with disabling barriers in urban spaces

Accessibility can be categorized into several primary areas based on the specific needs of users. These include visual accessibility, auditory accessibility, mobility considerations, seizure accessibility, and learning and cognitive accessibility, as well as related design practices such as color theory for accessibility.

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