39. Persons with Disabilities Access to the Web - Nifty 50
Grants from NSF, along with Department of Education efforts, are helping to ensure information on the World Wide Web is more widely accessible to people with disabilities.
In a project called the Web Accessibility Initiative, attempts to make information and services on the World Wide Web more available and accessible are being realized, allowing disabled persons to work, conduct commerce, do research and participate in educational efforts and social interactions more fully.
NSF's role has been to make sure web content is more uniform, allowing web browsers to work with more websites. As part of a three-year project, progress has been made already, as people with disabilities are now able to use alternate browsing capabilities and to gain access to increasingly larger volumes of information on the web.
NSF has contributed about two-thirds (the Department of Education about one-third) of the federal government's effort. Private industry, some European Union countries and Japan have also made significant contributions to this project.
Original publication date: April 2000