The Americans with Disability Act

Usability is a critical portion of web design that one must be ever mindful of when constructing websites. Whether creating a personal web space or building multiple pages for a large corporation, it is the burden of the designer to guarantee people can access that content. According to the United Nations, disabled people compose roughly 10 percent of the world’s population (United Nations, 2010). Many regulations and standards have been set forth to provide disabled people with the same opportunities to access content available on the World Wide Web, as it is most of the World’s population.

The presence of medical conditions, classified as disabilities by the Americans with Disabilities Act as, “…a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of an individual… (2008, Sect.4), has created a demand for equality on the W. W. W. similar to demands of equality by previous movements. Although the demands that disabled people are provided the same opportunities to access the Internet may be minute compared to previous civil rights struggles, it should not be overlooked as less important.

The Americans with Disability Act came into effect with the passing of the Senate Bill during the Second Session of the 101st United States Congress on January 23, 1990. It would come to define the need for conformity in the way that disabled people access the electronic world-at-large. In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act previously enacted in 1978 to include Section 508, which would require federal entities to allow for accessibility for disabled people. Similarly, On October 1, 1994, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3) was created at MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science. When web desi...

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...unity Commission. (n.d.) Myths and facts about the Americans with Disabilities Act. (¶ 11). Retrieved June 27,2010 from http://www.ada.gov/pubs/mythfct.txt

2. International Business Machines Corporation. (2010). Web site compliance solutions. Retrieved June 28, 2010 from http://www-01.ibm.com/software/rational/offerings/websecurity/webcompliance.html

3. United Nations. (2009). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, Sixty-fourth session, Agenda item 61. (¶ 17). Retrieved June 27, 2010 from http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/gashc3945.doc.htm

4. United States Access Board (2008). ADA Amendments Act of 2008. Retrieved June 28, 2010 from http://www.access-board.gov/about/laws/ada-amendments.htm

5. United States Department of Justice. (1993). ADA Title III Technical Assistance Manual § III-8-1000. Retrieved June 29, 2010 from http://www.ada.gov/taman3.html/