Legal Aspects of Interface Accessibility in the U.S.

Jonathan Lazar and Harry Hochheiser share their views on the legal aspects of interface accessibility in the US. Accessibility is the subject of the numerous federal statutes, regulations, and reports that define implementation of complex legislation in the country. Computing professionals need to play a leading role in achieving the goal of accessible information systems. Accessibility needs to inspire good design from software and hardware designers. Accessibility features also help users with disabilities, older users, and users with low-speed network connections in developing countries. Accessibility drives innovation in the country, as identifying creative solutions to challenging constraints is an essential part of good engineering and design. The challenge of providing greater accessibility has led to several innovations across many areas of computing within the country. It is expected that accepted best practices in software design can help encourage accessibility.