Teacher/facilitator

David Fazio, Helix Opportunity, USA

Description

W3C Invited Expert, David Fazio, will present the W3C Cognitive Accessibility and Learning Disabilities Task Force, Guide on How to Make Content Usable for People with Cognitive and Learning Disabilities.

More than 200 million people around the world, approximately 3% of the global population, have an intellectual disability, according to conservative estimates.

That number is projected to increase to around 300 million by 2050.

It is essential to the economy and to society that people with intellectual, and cognitive, disabilities stay as active as possible, and participate in society for as long as possible.

The current standards of web-based applications and other digital interfaces make ICT virtually impossible to use for many people with only a mild cognitive decline, let alone more severe cases of cognitive disability.

That means more and more people are dependent on caregivers for things that they should be able to do themselves.

That increases the crippling cost of care and reduces human dignity.

People who cannot use these interfaces will have an increased feeling of disability and isolation, as they are alienated from society.

Given the extraordinary amount of time human beings spend interacting with the web, and ICT, in this day and age, design is having major, potentially catastrophic, consequences on the wellbeing of all users in society. This session serves as a crash course in cognitive accessibility, and how these newly proposed success criteria provide accessibility to these user groups.
The W3C COGA Task Force Guide on How To Make Content Usable for People with Cognitive
and Learning Disabilities was developed to address many of these issues.

Expected learning outcomes