The accessibility is the quality of what is accessible. The accessible adjective, meanwhile, refers to what is easy to understand or understand.
The concept of accessibility, according to Digopaul, is used to name the degree or level at which any human being, regardless of their physical condition or cognitive abilities, can use a thing, enjoy a service or make use of a infrastructure.
There are various technical aids to promote accessibility and equalize the possibilities of all people. This means that a space with good accessibility conditions can receive all kinds of people without harm or complication for anyone.
Handicapped ramps, wheelchairs, the Braille alphabet, and audio signals are some of these technical aids.
Accessibility is a right that gives an individual the concrete and real possibility of entering, staying and visiting a place with security, comfort and the greatest possible autonomy.
Accessibility in computing
Since the earliest versions of Windows, which remains the world’s most popular operating system, Microsoft has introduced tools to assist users with various disabilities. One of the first examples is the option to magnify a portion of the desk for easy reading. This virtual magnifying glass, released almost two decades ago, was one of the first attempts to help people with vision problems read texts in small fonts. Nowadays, the flexibility of the programs is such that resizing their content is as essential a part as the rest of the functions.
Command via voice is also very popular. Basically, it consists of talking to the computer to request it to perform a wide variety of tasks: open programs, select words and click on a link, among many others. Another very useful purpose of this tool is the dictation of text for writing documents without using your hands.
Finally, we have assistance for people who are color blind and hard of hearing. Those who have trouble distinguishing certain colors often find options for coping with them, which may include, for example, giving each color a particular pattern or pattern. Regarding hearing, for some years now, YouTube has been working on its automatic subtitle generator; Although the result is not perfect, this component is very useful, since in most videos the authors do not take that work.
The danger of unnecessary accessibility
A movement that began with the altruistic purpose of helping people with certain disabilities, soon became the most popular trend in developing devices and digital content. It cannot be said that all the products that have managed to transcend the barriers that contained them are empty or that they have lost their essence; But the past decade has seen a troubling change in the relationship between people and technology.
Just twenty years ago, those without motor problems typed their own texts; Today, any device takes on this task for us, although not without errors. It was also common to use a faculty called memory, which allowed us to remember phone numbers, birthday dates, and even email addresses. This is no longer necessary, nor normal.
This list of services provides us with great comfort, and it is often very positive, especially in an emergency. Likewise, if we could calculate the magnitude of mental processing that this level of assistance saves us, we would surely obtain a considerable result. The expectation, therefore, would be for the human being to take advantage of this already unnecessary capacity to progress, to resolve certain issues that plagued him in the era of Windows 3.1 and tube televisions. The expected, unfortunately, is light years away from reality.
