Part 1 - Naturally occurring
On the baseline, cognitive disorders are about the brain and problems understanding things. So there is no easy fix like slapping an alt attribute in code, increasing color contrast and we will not understand something whether written or read in a screen reader, using flexible widths where the content paragraphs are to long can even cause more trouble for us even though free flexing sizes are considered accessible.
So there is no easy fix for cognitive disorders, no good techniques have emerged yet. So I will try to explain our lives to you per real life examples. I am lucky that my issues are more minor, also one our members at Killersites has been effected and allowed me to tell her story. What I hope to share with you is both light and extreme cognitive disabilities as well as natural occurring and accidental disabilities so you see that you may have no users like this today, but may tomorrow and smack dab in your target group. Then finally that it is not always about disabilities either.
I am 44, a professional web developer/analyst programmer and web accessibility advocate instructing employees of the state of Alaska. I have a physical disability not related to the web, I have been diagnosed as depressive (cognitive disorder) and although not yet official, unofficially I am listed as having Asperger Syndrome (a cognitive disorder and a sub-section or High form of Autism). Yet meeting me in person you would not tag me as traditionally Autistic or depressive. Asperger did not exist when I was a kid so I was likely diagnosed late. It is also possible that I have a lesser known version of ADHD.
So how do these react with the web?
Patience: I tend to grow more impatient than I used to. I am immediately turned off by long stretches of content. It is like a switch being thrown, I see the long length of text and something just drops in me, I cringe and maybe buckle down to read, but mostly just go back and try to find a different source. I just cannot face long text on a computer screen… but enjoy a nice long book.
I also tend to feel I don’t have enough time, even though I may, so again long text turn me off.
Medication: I am on anti-depressants, Cholesterol lowering meds and pain killers for my physical pains. This cocktail, of which 2 make you drowsy, can really effect my surfing habbits. Being tired makes it hard to read and concentrate on technical issues. The meds and drowsiness make it hard for me to focus on a web site, especially those with smaller fonts, and result in headaches or closing my eyes to rest them and falling a sleep. Web design does effect this to a small extent, a boring site design is just marginally worse than and interesting one… but more the colors and font sizes directly effect me. Poor choices cause eye strain and can result in headaches (and that really for anyone).
Attention: As touched on above, the meds cause attention issues, but so does Asberger and ADHD. So when trying to concentrate on complicated issues… any distracting Gif or Flash animations just compound that. If I am having trouble comprehending the content, I easily switch to something easier… I have to fight to stay focused. I think that is why I hate the modern design concept of multiple boxes and almost all content of the site smashed onto the index page. It overwhelms me and gives to to much straying of my attention. I despise such sites as M$N and the others with links upon links and all trying to offer subjects I care nothing for like news, stocks, weather.
Motivation: This is a direct reflection of both the depression and the Meds. I am not motivated, I tire of things easily. I don’t care. In the Killersites forum I used to help allot, less these days because I am not motivated to do so. Just as described above I shy away from complicated subjects that I will have to think about. It is to straining to do so. To repeatedly answer the same questions, repeatedly argue with people who do not care about those with disabilities, those who want to be told how good they are and not listen to criticism. I patrol for spam more than anything. My own Blog suffers from this as well, I do not feel motivated to write and even have to fight to write this. Now that I am one of those with disabilities, I find myself drifting away from web accessibility advocacy. I do not even go on my computer much these days… I just do not feel like it. If Google gives me lots of hits I cringe, in no mood for reading through pages and pages of useless info to find the gem.
Problem Solving: This is the biggest issue for me I guess and is made up of all above. Asperger and depression both affect problem solving skills. I of course am now a programmer… wonderful. Programming is in fact problem solving. “This is what I need, who do I do it?”, “This is what someone wrote, what were they thinking, what does it do, why is it broken and how to I fix it?”, I earn my living doing exactly that which comes hardest to me these days. When I started in the Killersites Forums I helped people with problems, but now I cannot break down other peoples code to find the mistake… I give tips and hints at what to look for and hope the other regulars can figure it out. I feel headaches coming on as soon as I see a complicated issue before me.
I have just touched on a few items here, both to keep it short and because I have lost my train of thought… my concentration… what my point was to be. My conditions are minor… for those who are full fledged Autistic, these issues are multiplied!
So I would like to mention one of my favorite projects: Zac Browser (Zone for Autistic Children). It is the brain child of a Software Engineer who’s grandson Zack is Autistic and was overwhelmed by to many buttons and actions in modern browsers. He created a browser for Autistic children with very few, large buttons using images that make their use clear and the browser has web sites embedded in it that are clean and built for children so Zack will be fairly focused and not torn between multiple decisions. I have played with it and find it excellent. Any one with children should have a go with it.
If I have raised your awareness to the issues and you are interested in more, I offer you these reference points:
- Job Accommodation Network (JAN) - Disabilities A-Z. Explanations on how to accommodate employees with given disabilities.
- JAN - Asperger Syndrome
“People with Asperger Syndrome can excessively elaborate on their own topics of interest, however, be unable or unwilling to participate in other parts of conversation or to end a conversation, partially because of the inability to gauge social context or interpret social cues (Klin et al., 2000).”
- My regular readers should recognize this *grin*.
- JAN - Depression
- JAN - Attention Deficit Disorder (Learning Disabilities)
- JAN also discusses other cognitive disorders that can affect use of the web. Consider Anxiety Disorders, Cognitive Impairments, Bipolar Disorders, Epilepsy, Migraine Headaches… as well as some web related physical disabilities.