Disability Types
The four major categories of disability types are:
Blindness, low-vision, color-blindness.
- About 5% of people, and 10% of all men are partially color blind.
- Red-Green color blind is the most common. Due to their color blindness, they will often confuse certain colors if they are together, especially if the are in the red or green color schemes.
Deafness and hard-of-hearing.
The inability to use a mouse, slow response time, limited fine motor control, Repetition is difficult for these audiences and fatigue is exhibited frequently (i.e. Cerebral Palsy, complete paralysis).
Keep in mind that some users may have difficulty using a mouse, accessing interactive or dynamic JavaScript elements on a page, or clicking on small buttons and links. Conditions such as severe arthritis or fibromyalgia may also limit users' ability to engage with tactile elements on mobile devices.
The largest disability group which varies greatly and includes: learning disabilities, distractibility, and the inability to remember or focus on large amounts of information. Consistent and simple organization goes a long way with these audiences and focusing on the important content.
There are lots of different cognitive disabilities that may affect your users' ability to effectively interact with your web maps. Users may encounter difficulties with memory, problem-solving, attention, verbal comprehension, math comprehension, visual and text comprehension, etc.
In general, keeping your maps as simple and well-organized as possible will help your users with cognitive disabilities get the most out of your maps!