The Futurism of Sight

New biological technologies are addressing visual impairments for patients from implanted to prosthetic devices to accessibility platforms

Photo by Angel Jimenez on Unsplash.

Visual impairments come in many different forms: from birth, aging, disease, and trauma. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally, it is estimated that “approximately 1.3 billion people live with some form of distance or near vision impairment.” The leading diseases that affect vision over time are age-related, macular degeneration and glaucoma. Such is important when designing the usabilities of technologies.

When designing websites from a usability perspective the American Disability Acts (ADA) best practice tool kit with action items considers the visually impaired:

+ include a “skip navigation” link at the top of webpages that allows people who use screen readers to ignore navigation links and skip directly to webpage content;

+ minimize blinking, flashing, or other distracting features;