Towards evaluation framework for vision impairment friendly information systems

Inhalt:
Digital divide is a general term for describing the inequality in assessing services of the information society. One form of digital divide is caused by vision impairment, which can take several forms from total blindness to minor shortcomings say in colour recognition. Vision impairment is a major nuisance and challenge, for the individuals touched upon, but even for the whole society. The access to different services – including government services – can be seriously harmed as the services turn into the net, to an electronic form where the major access channel is through the Internet, which effective use is based on highly visual user interface, usually the WWW. This topic is very scarcely discussed among the researchers of e Government. This study studies the depth and scope of the problem of vision impairment when using electronic government services. In addition, the major and first activities that have been taken or should be taken by government service designers and user interface producers are reviewed. Two countries, Germany and Finland, are taken as examples.