accessibility

The accessibility is the quality of what is accessible. The adjective accessible, on the other hand, refers to what is of understanding or simple understanding.

The concept of accessibility, therefore, is used to name the grade or level in which any human being, beyond his condition physical or cognitive faculties, you can use a thing, enjoy a service or make use of an infrastructure.

There are various technical help to promote accessibility and equalize the possibilities of all people. This means that a space with good accessibility conditions can receive all kinds of people. without any harm or complication for anyone.

Handicap ramps, wheelchairs, Braille alphabet, and signs auditory are some of these technical help.

Accessibility is a right that grants an individual the concrete and real possibility to enter, stay and travel a place with safety, comfort and the greatest possible autonomy.

Accessibility in computing

Since the earliest versions of Windows, which remains the world's most popular operating system, Microsoft has introduced tools to assist users with various disabilities. One of the first examples is the option to magnify a portion of the desktop to make it easier to read. Is virtual magnifying glass, which appeared almost two decades ago, was one of the first attempts to help visually impaired people to read texts with small fonts. Nowadays, the flexibility of programs is such that resizing their content is a part as essential as the rest of the functions.

It is also very popular command through voice. Basically, it consists of talk to the computer to ask you to perform a variety of tasks: opening programs, selecting words, and clicking a link, among many others. Another very useful purpose of this tool is the dictation of text for writing documents without using your hands.

Finally, we have the assistance color blind and hearing impaired people. Those who have problems distinguishing certain colors often find options to cope with them, which may consist, for example, in giving each color a plot or particular design. With regard to audition, for some years, YouTube has been working on its automatic subtitle generator; Although the result is not perfect, this component is very useful, since in most of the videos the authors do not take that work.

The danger of unnecessary accessibility

A movement that began with the altruistic purpose of helping people with certain disabilities, soon became the trend most popular when it comes to developing digital content and devices. It cannot be said that all the products that have managed to transcend the barriers that contained them are empty or that they have lost their essence; But the last decade has seen a worrying change in the relationship between people and technology.

Only twenty years ago, those who did not have motor problems typed their own texts; nowadays, any device takes on this task for us, though not without mistakes. It was also common to use a feature called memory, which allowed us to remember phone numbers, birthdays, and even email addresses. This is no longer necessary, nor normal.

This list of services they provide us with great comfort, and many times it is very positive, especially in an emergency. Also, if we could calculate the amount of mental processing that this level of assistance saves us, we would surely obtain a considerable result. What is expected, therefore, would be for the human being to take advantage of this capacity, unnecessary, to progress, to solve certain issues that plagued him in the era of Windows 3.1 and tube televisions. What is expected, unfortunately, is far Light years of reality.