2007 PhD Thesis Final Revised.pdf - Curtin University

Internet but, generally speaking, the number of people who conceptually understand
the Internet and those who were able to use it were similar. However, more
advanced Internet applications, such as mailing lists, newsgroups and real-time chat,
were only familiar to one-third of the respondents.
Thus, two significant issues emerged here in relation to the disability divide.
Firstly, blind and vision impaired users’ level of understanding was significantly less
than that of computing concepts. This finding suggested that there were accessibility
issues which prevented access to the Internet which did not of themselves limit
access to personal computing as a whole. Secondly, the familiarity of users with
Internet applications was rather more limited than all users, indicating that some
applications which can be specifically beneficial to people with disabilities, such as
mailing lists and real-time chat, were not available to them.
The accessibility issues faced by people who are blind or vision impaired
were reflected in many questions from this section demonstrated by the extremities
in the response patterns. For example, the use of OS-based accessibility tools and
third-party AT devices showed that respondents were divided in their views.
Respondents largely ignored the extreme viewpoints of strongly agree and strongly
disagree, and chose instead to select the less extreme views. Furthermore, the
number who agreed or disagreed were very similar. This suggested that the success
of AT when using the Internet was largely a hit-and-miss affair, with AT being
effective on some occasions and ineffective for others. In regards to overall AT
usage, this result may have indicated that much of the AT equipment and OS
accessibility tools currently available did not effectively provide assistance to people
who were blind or vision impaired, or that the group was not familiar with products
which could have proved beneficial, or that a link had not yet been made between
assisted computer use and the Internet. These possibilities were supported by the
research discussed in earlier chapters regarding the accessibility issues of online
information and in the survey results of the previous section.
The survey also suggested that the provision of online information was
another divided issue amongst respondents as there was a lack of extreme views.
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