ABSTRACT
When the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) launched its initiative to develop guidelines promoting accessible website design for people with disabilities, Berners-Lee, father of the Web, observed that ‘The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect’ (W3C, 1997). Similarly, commentators in government, education, medicine, charitable agencies and society at large have lauded the Web as a means of allowing people with disabilities some level of independence and social inclusion that might otherwise be difficult and perhaps impossible to achieve in the offiine world. Thus receipt of state benefits, organisation of healthcare, delivery of education, communication with local and national government, and the exercise of democratic rights, let alone increased opportunities to work, shop and be entertained, can all be enabled for those with disabilities, so the proponents argue, by use of the Web. While there is undoubtedly truth in these contentions, such enabling is not without complexity. Thus this chapter seeks to explore the issues that promote and inhibit use of the Web for these ends.
