The European Concept For Accessibility 2003

3.6 Public Information Services

Until recently, newspapers, television, radio and certain telephone services were the only means of informing the public about local, national or world events. But nowadays, although these services continue to have a role in providing daily information and in communication, the major advances made in the field of new technology have ushered in what is known as the information society.

Anybody with a computer connected to the Internet can now obtain information about any subject, from any place and in any language. (The other communications media even use this resource to obtain news and images).

Furthermore, the development of such technology means that anybody, regardless of their physical, mental or sensory capabilities, can access the same information as the rest of the population by means of Braille displays, alternative keyboards, browsers for visually-impaired people, voice synthesisers, electronic text displays, texts in different languages, the option of changing the size of lettering or the colour of the background, etc.

Due to the importance of this medium at a social level, international guidelines, European directives and national regulations have emerged with the intention of making all web sites accessible:

- The features of the computer or browser being used to access the Web site should make it easy to do so.

- Images should be accompanied by a description of their content.

- Size of lettering and colour contrast should be taken into account.

- Animated graphics should be avoided because visually-impaired people cannot read them.

- It should always be possible to return to the Home page without using the browser buttons.

- Language used should be clear and easy for everybody to understand.

- There should be a detailed index of the different services to be found on the Web site.

Finally, it is important that the whole population has access to these information services, either through the creation of municipal centres which can be visited by users or by providing Internet connections in homes.