2007 PhD Thesis Final Revised.pdf - Curtin University

question was to determine the extent to which government sites are, or perceived to
be, inaccessible. Another key area of questions focused on media-related issues.
The first asks if the Internet was the preferred option over other media in locating
news and media-related information. The second asks if a news site was easy to find
but locating specific content on the site was difficult. The purpose of these
questions was to determine if people with vision disabilities use the Internet as their
primary information source and to find out if the way in which information was
provided on a news site can be easily located.
The respondents were asked in this section if the makers of computer
Operating Systems have a good understanding of what people with disabilities need
in order to access computers and if the design of the computer itself could be
improved to help use a computer more effectively. Pricing issues were also raised.
The purpose of these questions was to determine if respondents perceived that the
corporations were doing a good job in providing access to technology to people with
vision disabilities, both in terms of the OS and the hardware. The third question was
designed to determine if the additional burden of having to buy AT was preventing
people with vision disabilities from accessing computing technologies. A question
regarding the need for help when using the Internet was also asked. The purpose of
this question was to determine if the use of computers was truly independent for
people with vision disabilities. This question was of particular relevance when
compared with the personal living arrangements data as it could help confirm if
sharing accommodation allows for easier access to computing and Internet-related
technologies for blind and vision impaired people. The final question of the main
survey, Question 45, asked if learning how to use AT was a simple process which
could easily be mastered. This question was designed to determine if AT products
were deemed to be intuitive. For more information regarding the survey questions,
please refer to Appendix B.
Volunteers who assisted in entering the survey data were given an additional
question asking what the original format was for the survey. One option can be
selected out of web page, print, Braille or telephone interview. Respondents
completing the online version of the survey do not see this question and a response of
‘web page’ was automatically submitted.
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