Windows 8 Blog explains Windows 8 accessibility features

One area of Windows that is often overlooked is the accessibility features, for some people is an essential part of their daily lives so its really important that Windows 8’s new style Metro apps maintain the accessibility features of traditional desktop apps.

On the Windows 8 Blog Microsoft have talked about accessibility in Windows 8 and it looks like there are doing a good job in making Windows 8 accessible to all.

We want all users to be able to experience Windows 8 Metro style apps on their desktops, laptops, or the new touch-capable devices. This includes people with disabilities who rely on assistive technologies to use the PC.

About 15% of the world’s population has a disability¹. In the United States alone, 49.6 million people have a disability² and 45 million in Europe³. When it comes to interacting with computers, these disabilities affect individuals in a number of ways:

• Visual impairments include color vision deficiency, low-vision and blindness – all of which may impact the individual’s ability to see content displayed on the screen.
• Mobility impairments include arthritis, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and paraplegia, which impact the ability to use the keyboard and/or mouse to interact with the PC.
• Hearing impairments include conditions ranging from mild hearing loss to total deafness, and impact the individual’s ability to experience audio content generated by the computer.
• Cognitive impairments impact an individual’s learning and language skills, the ability to comprehend words, and difficulty with memory, solving problems, or perceiving sensory information.

The rates of individuals with disabilities are also increasing across the world due to the aging population and increases in chronic health conditions. One of the consequences of the global aging phenomena is the impact it will have on the workforce. For example, in the US, workers aged 55 and older are anticipated to increase from 18.1 to 23.9 percent by 2018⁵. That is more than one in five workers. Functional limitations as a result of aging (for example, presbyopia, the gradual loss of the eyes’ ability to focus actively on nearby objects, a condition that usually becomes noticeable in one’s mid-40s and continues to worsen until around age 65) will impact an older workforce’s ability to use technology that isn’t easy to see. As a result, there will be an increase in the number of working-age adults who are likely to benefit from the use of accessible technology.

Continue reading on the Windows 8 Blog