The Role of Accessibility in a Universal Web

"Accessibility" has historically referred to design for people with disabilities. Research and development in accessibility brings benefits to everyone, particularly users with situational limitations. Awareness and understanding of the benefits of web accessibility to users without disabilities is growing with the rapid increase of web-enabled devices such as mobile phones, tablets, televisions, and more; the increasing focus on the growing number older web users; and wider web reach in areas with high incidence of low literacy, low bandwidth, older technology, etc. This communications paper explains the need for web design, development, and research to continue to focus on accessibility for people with disabilities, while further integrating with work in other areas. It also describes how the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) are working to address accessibility and related user needs throughout the technologies of the web, and invites all interested parties to participate in research and development to further integrate accessibility for the benefit of all.