Connecting for a Better Future: Understanding Visual Access Needs

After the success of last year's events, Access Advisors is again hosting a series of webinars to help you learn about various access needs. 

This webinar, the first in the series, will help you learn about visual access needs. After this webinar you will understand more about what makes a more user friendly experience for those who face visual access needs in their day to day life.

Introduction

Human beings rely heavily on vision to get information from our environment, including information from the Internet. When considering accessibility one of the first access needs that comes to mind are those that relate to vision. But many people are unaware of the true extent of the issues and how to address them.

Almost 4% of the New Zealand population is registered as Blind or Low Vision. But on top of that there are many other New Zealanders who have some form of vision impairment. This includes people with colour deficiencies, deteriorating eyesight due to age, extreme near or far sightedness and those who have had devastating eye injuries. There are also people with temporary or situational visual access needs including people in low light or high glare and those with eye injuries or illness.

The impact of a visual impairment on technology use can range from struggling to read the text when it is too small, to being blocked from using a website because you don’t know what is on the screen. Providing better access to technology for people with visual access needs ranges from making text bigger to coding the website in the right way so that assistive technology can read out the information to a blind user.

Learning outcomes

In this session you will:

•   Learn more about having visual impairment
•   Discuss the impact of visual impairment on technology
•   Have a demo of Assistive technology for accessing the Internet and apps
•   Identify some design and development consideration

With gratitude 

Sign up now and look for our other webinars this week focusing on all different kinds of access needs for a more complete idea of how to create an inclusive digital experience. Or purchase all five together at a lower rate in our TechWeek2021 Bundle Event!

Who we are

Access Advisors' mission is to help businesses across Aotearoa be more accessible for all Kiwis by removing barriers in interface design. We care about people and accessibility and strive to increase awareness of permanent, temporary and situational access needs. Initiated by Blind Low Vision New Zealand in 2017 in response to business demand for accessibility support, our connection now extends to many different communities. Our capabilities span the product life cycle, from discovery through design and development and onto delivery. We help businesses reach their accessibility goals and increase their internal capability, while being conscious of business realities.