Opportunities for disabled people through ICTs: a perspective from Turkey

Abstract Information and communication technologies (ICTs), which have developed rapidly in recent years, have brought notable changes to human life. Additionally, the use of ICTs also has importance from the point of view of disabled people. Because of physical deficiencies, disabled people make more effort to access knowledge and services relative to healthy people. Also, they face some important constraints in urban spaces. The planning of urban spaces according to the requirements of disabled people is a necessity of being in a contemporary society. Furthermore, offering some opportunities for disabled people through ICTs should be considered. While healthy people do not have any limitations, disabled people face some important constraints in using these technologies. With this in mind, designing ICTs without considering disabled people will cause discrimination against them by society. In addition, e-learning and teleworking concepts, which have arisen together with ICTs, are an important perspective related to education and employment policies for disabled people. In this paper, the importance of considering the needs and problems of disabled people in accessing ICTs is emphasized, and also this paper aims to evaluate opportunities offered by new technologies for disabled people in Turkey. The uses of areas of ICTs seen as a tool in order to raise the quality of life of disabled people are evaluated, and the problems and opportunities are revealed. People with intellectual disabilities are not addressed within this study. Instead, it focuses on individuals with physical disabilities such as visual, hearing, and orthopedic impairment. Opportunities offered by ICTs for disabled people are evaluated. Also, recommendations are developed about the accessibility of disabled people to employment, education, health, and social and urban services in Turkey. Another aim of this paper is to create awareness for disabled people about the use of ICTs. Firstly, a literature review was done, and in addition to the print and electronic resources, suggestions and opinions were taken from public institutions and organizations. Furthermore, the needs and constraints of disabled people are explored for the use of ICTs by conducting in-depth interviews.