Inclusão digital: acessibilidade de deficientes visuais à internet

Abstract

The present work aims to validate the accessibility to the Intemet to the visually impaired people's, a delicate form of inclusion compared to other forms of digital inclusion. The several forms of digital divide and digital inclusion will be approached, so that the context that involves the above-mentioned process is clearly understood. The author carried out a case study related to the Group of Visually impaired People of PRODAM - Data Processing Company of the City of Be; Sao Paulo -, an institution that maintains a site about the theme in the Internet, and ^F ~~ aims at the inclusion of the visually impaired. Among other aspects, the present work describes the recommendations and technical points of verification, indispensable for accessibility. The author analyzed the initial page of the site of several organizations, using specific accessibility criteria for visually impaired people contained in the guide called WCAG - Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The guide, used all over the world, belongs to W3C - World Wide Web Consortium. It estabiishes and disseminates accessibility standards according to each specific case of deficiency. The W3C consortium is coordinated by MIT - Massachusetts institute of Technology; ERCIM - European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics; and KEIO - Keio University. The initiatives that aim at the well being of visually impaired people focus, mainly, on mobility and architectural barriers, which, despite their importance, constitute one among several difficulties faced everyday by those who have some kind of deficiency. In this sense, access to digital media would facilitate visually impaired users' development and education, allowing them to access, also, a wide range of information available in the Internet