On the importance of disability!

Although often used as an umbrella term, disabled people or, as some prefer, people with disabilities, are not a homogeneous monolith but a vastly diverse group of people with a wide, varying palette of needs. A person with mobility issues will have different concerns than a person with sight impairment or participation restrictions. Similarly, the elderly have unique needs in an aging population whose access to public consultation on policies that concern them is limited and/or difficult. It is crucial for their insights and concerns to be represented on a larger governmental scale. Maximising the accessibility of web-based participatory democracy is therefore of primary importance to platform their voices and provide equivalent user experiences to all.

While technological improvements have been made to render the online world accessible to people with disabilities, platforms for public consultation have a special duty to be as inclusive as possible to all citizen demographics. Today, 24% of EU residents are estimated to live with a disability (87 million individuals). In 2021, a quarter of the EU population experienced long-standing activity limitations due to health problems. Meanwhile, according to the WHO, Europe counts 26 million visually impaired people though the European Blind Union estimates this number at 30 million to account for the prevalence of sight-loss among aging populations and the number of individuals who do not self-report. A platform of participatory democracy needs to include the necessary tools and accommodations to allow people with various (or several) disabilities to navigate it, use it, and make their voices heard on it in an engaging, user-friendly, and easy way. To make public consultation accessible means to provide equal opportunities to the entire population, and make sure that the adjustments stay as up-to-date as possible in the long run.

Interested in learning more about how accessability brings closer the technology to the people? Check out the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The W3C is the leading organization on this topic.

Links of interest:

• Infographic - Disability in the EU: facts and figures - link
• Disability statistics in Europe - link
• Article from the WHO on "Blindness and vision impairment" - link
• Facts from "The voice of blind and partially sighted people in Europe" organization about blindness and partial sight - link