Developing Accessible Websites for Differently Abled People using Open Source Tools

Abstract

The Internet has revolutionized almost all aspects of life. Unfortunately, the potential of this platform is still not accessible by the differently-abled population. In this paper, a feasible solution is proposed to build a compact and efficient web architecture using open-source tools to address all disabilities on a single website. Three different categories of disabilities are targeted, and considering their active senses, and convenient tools are developed for human-computer interaction without using any external hardware. Resulting in a robust framework of web accessibility tools to enhance web traversal for differently-abled people. As a case study, 25 users tested the practicality of the proposed framework as demonstrated by implementing it on an Indian Government website. It was observed that the tools were appreciated as adequate by approximately 80% of users. This solution has been proposed to the Government of India and has received positive feedback on several tests.