Statistics on disability and accessibility (Full Version)

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womble -> Statistics on disability and accessibility (8/4/2005 12:28:30)

For those with an interest in the statistics on disability and accessibility, I’ve been doing a little digging around on the RNIB website and elsewhere.

Information on internet usage by people with disabilities (mainly US) - http://www.imtc.gatech.edu/csun/stats.html

Also interesting facts on internet usage by people with disabilities in the UK by the Jospeh Rowntree Foundation - http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialcare/524.asp
quote:

Assistive devices
Given the sample base, it is not surprising that about two-thirds of the Internet users said that they required assistive devices (aids, equipment, adaptations) to access a computer or the Internet. Voice recognition was most commonly mentioned (45 per cent), followed by keyboard adaptations (28 per cent), mouse adaptations (24 per cent), and speech output systems (19 per cent). While most people who said that they used assistive devices did have them available, almost half had problems using them. People attempting to use voice recognition systems reported problems most frequently.
The cost of assistive devices was a considerable problem for some respondents, sometimes compromising the selection of devices appropriate for their requirements.

Views of websites
There was a strong relationship between the need to use assistive devices and website accessibility: only 38 per cent of those needing assistive devices found most or many websites easy to use and navigate, compared with 69 per cent of those who did not use assistive devices.
Asked for suggestions on how websites could be better designed for easier use, respondents threw up several recurrent themes:

* clear summaries of website information and navigation instructions on the home page;
* less cluttered pages;
* fewer graphics and less advertising;
* easier-to-find links;
* easily adjustable type sizes and colours.


Visual Impairments
The figures below show that 312,000 people are registered as blind or partially sighted (these figures are for England only – separate figures for Scotland and Wales are available). Note these figures are for those registered as blind or partially sighted with their local Social Services department – there’s no compulsion to be registered with SS (unless they’re wanting help with special equipment, many people don’t bother to register, (a similar situation for deaf people is true and many local authorities now don’t have a general ‘registered disabled’ register). Many people may have severe visual problems but might not meet the legal criteria of registered blindness/partial sight.

Of course website accessibility is about more than catering for blind/partially sighted people.

•At 31 March 2003 157 thousand people were on the register of blind people.
•Since March 2000 the number of blind people on the register has risen in most age groups. The largest growth was in the number of people on the register aged 50-64, which increased by 9% to 14,500 at March 2003.
•13,000 people joined the register of blind people during 2002-03, about 70 more people than in 1999-2000. Over the last 20 years the number of people registering as blind within the survey year has been between 12,000 to 14,000, peaking in the 12 months to March 1994.

Register of partially sighted people
•At 31 March 2003 155 thousand people were on the register of partially sighted people. This is an increase of around 6,500 (4%) since March 2000
•There has been an increase in the number of partially sighted people on the registers for most age groups since March 2000. The largest increase is in the 5-17 age group (16% since March 2000). The only age group in which the number of partially sighted people declined was 0-4 year olds with a 6% decrease.
•16,600 people joined the register of partially sighted people during 2002-03, about 900 fewer people than in 1999-2000. Between 1982 and 2003 the number of people registering as partially sighted within the survey year has nearly doubled from 9,000 to 16,000.

Registration of people with additional disabilities at 31 March 2003
•25% of all registered blind people who had an additional disability were also recorded as deaf or having a hearing impairment. About a quarter of these people were blind and deaf, whilst three quarters were blind with a hearing impairment.
•23% of all registered partially sighted people who had an additional disability were also deaf or had a hearing impairment. A third of these people were partially sighted and deaf whilst two thirds were partially sighted with a hearing impairment.
(from the ONS/DoH report on “Registered blind and partially sighted people at March 2003” - http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/07/23/38/04072338.pdf)

Some general facts and figures from the Employers Forum on Disability (http://www.employers-forum.co.uk/www/guests/info/disability.htm)
• there are approximately 8.6 million disabled people in the UK covered by the Disability Discrimination Act, which represents around 15 percent of the population
• most disabled people acquire their disability during their working life or later
• over 5.5 million disabled people are of working age which represents 16 percent of the working population
• however, only 50 percent of disabled people of working age are in employment compared to 87 percent of non-disabled people of working age
• disabled people are nearly five times as likely as non-disabled people to be out of work and claiming benefits. Of the 2.8 million disabled people on state benefits and not in work nearly a million would like to work
• fewer than 8 percent of disabled people use wheelchairs
• by the year 2010, 40 percent of the UK population will be over 45 - the age at which the incidence of disability begins to increase significantly
• At least one in four customers either has a disability or is close to someone who is
• the estimated annual purchasing power of people with disabilities is £40-£50 billion.

I was struggling to find statistics for the USA (the link from the RNIB site seems to be broken), but I did find a site that said the prevalence of vision impairments in the USA was 1 in 113, or 2.4 million Americans.

For an update on the latest additions to the Disability Discrimination Act, the RNIB site has a lot of information (more changes came into effect in October 2004, including the abolution of the small employer exemption. (Web Access Centre – UK Law - http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/PublicWebsite/public_legalcase.hcsp)



BobbyDouglas -> RE: Statistics on disability and accessibility (8/4/2005 14:13:40)

Womble, this information needs to be pinned.

This is EXACTLY what is needed when you try to prove a user base is actually being effected.

I wouldn't be suprised if even 1/3 of the total number of people, were ones who didn't register for help.

quote:

Of course website accessibility is about more than catering for blind/partially sighted people.

- Very true. However, I would think that the blind/partially sighted people would be the ones that we need to focus most on. It seems like if we can get things better so it works for them, it "should" work for most others.

Womble, I really appreciate the time you spent putting this much needed information together. Although some bits conflict with what others have said, but I am sure they will see this post and be able to comment on the different numbers.

Thanks again!



womble -> RE: Statistics on disability and accessibility (8/4/2005 15:08:12)

quote:

I wouldn't be suprised if even 1/3 of the total number of people, were ones who didn't register for help.

As I said, there's no compulsion for people to register, partly as often it serves no useful purpose, and partly because there's still unecessary stigma attached to the 'disabled label'.

quote:

Although some bits conflict with what others have said, but I am sure they will see this post and be able to comment on the different numbers.

There's always a problem with conflicts with other sources of information. I'm a researcher by trade and spend half my working life trying to verify figures. As an aside - for the voluntary group I do work for I'm trying to get accurate figures on deafness in the county and have had to contact half the local social services department to try and get some reasonably accurate figures. Even they admit their official figures don't show the true picture. Apart from the problems with disability as mentioned above, there's also the problem that until recently web accessibility hasn't been given the attention it deserves and little large scale research has been done on it. That's why I believe that forums such as this are so important. One of the comments made by the JRF report (an important source of social data and research here in the UK which I use daily at work) summed up why accessible websites are so important for disabled people:
quote:

The limited amount of previous research evidence available on disabled people's attitudes to the Internet indicates that these are positive. A survey carried out for the US National Organization on Disability in 2000 found that 48 per cent of disabled people said that going online significantly increased their quality of life, compared with 27 per cent of non-disabled people. In the UK, a Leonard Cheshire study published in 2002 found that 54 per cent of disabled people sampled considered Internet access essential, compared with only 6 per cent in the general population.



caz -> RE: Statistics on disability and accessibility (8/4/2005 15:28:13)

I echo Womble's cautions on the use of raw statistics but they are around and they can be used.

I concentrated on the US side of this research, and came up with some internet usage statistics based on the last population sample done in 2001.

http://www.pewinternet.org/report_display.asp?r=88#navigate

The Ever-Shifting Internet Population: A new look at Internet access and the digital divide ( in the USA )

Some 18 percent of survey respondents said they had disabilities -- "a percentage that is very close to the 20 percent of Americans that the U.S. Census Bureau reports with disabilities," says the study.

But "...it is likely that some individuals (especially those who have little knowledge of the Internet and computers) believe their disability impairs Internet use when in fact it does not.""

From http://www.imtc.gatech.edu/csun/stats.html

In May-June of 2001, about 38% of adults with disabilities used the Internet at home, compared to about 56% of adults without disabilities, a gap of 18 percentage points.

The statistics of use by 5-17 disabled users in schools would appear to show that the numbers of users in this age group was actually higher than in the general population. About 90 percent of 5- to 17-year-olds used computers and 59 percent used the Internet in this year(2001) and of those using the internet, it was futher broken down. This figure shows only a 10% difference in internet use when all other factors are equal.


No in 000's computer use internet use
Disabled 626 80.0 48.9
Not disabled 45,416 89.8 59.4

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/quarterly/vol_5/5_4/2_1.asp

(Interviews were conducted in about 56,000 households in September 2001 and collected information regarding 28,002 5- to 17-year-olds, including those enrolled in school and those not enrolled in school. One respondent per household was interviewed and that respondent provided information about the household and about individual household members, including information about computer and Internet use. Because a household's respondent may not have full information regarding computer and Internet use by other members of the household, this method is a potential source of error in the data.) So this is a population survey, not the full census information so it should be used only as a guide.

Further census and population surveys can be found at [link=http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/computer.html[/link]

The consensus seems to be that if Internet use by persons with disabilities continues at the same growth rate, it should match the Internet use of the non-disabled in a few years.

The IMTC site briefly mentions Section 508: "The standards apply to Federal web sites but not to private sector web sites (unless a site is provided under contract to a Federal agency, in which case only that web site or portion covered by the contract would have to comply)."

That's the shortest, clearest description of the reach of 508 that I have been able to find.




dpf -> RE: Statistics on disability and accessibility (8/4/2005 16:20:58)

quote:

The standards apply to Federal web sites
That is what I thought. However, havingworked >20 yearsin gov, I can tell you what will happen next. State and local governemtns that receive any funding will have to comply. Next, any private entity with a contract with those state and local will have to comply. its called Standards Evolution -lol



jaybee -> RE: Statistics on disability and accessibility (8/4/2005 17:34:20)

As far as I can tell it's called total confusion. I'll be posting a tidied up version of the legislation in the morning but it seems that apart from 508 which is pretty much tied down, you have ADA, and different states are all interpreting it in different ways, so people are getting clobbered in one place but let off in another.

I thought the UK was bad but at least our Govt seem to agree on what is covered and what isn't.



womble -> RE: Statistics on disability and accessibility (11/18/2005 20:51:08)

Today I've been contacted by a UK university who are researching deaf people's use of the internet and whether/how it makes a difference to their lives.

Given my interest in accessibility and the fact that by trade I'm a researcher, I've asked if they could keep me informed of the outcomes of the survey. The results of the survey should be out early in the new year and I'll post them here as soon as I receive them.



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