Online banks inaccessible to blind users
By Ditte Junge July 10, 2007
During the last years, it has become more and more common to have internet access to banks. This facilitates many aspects of daily life such as money transfers, budgeting etc.
This possibility is an obvious advantage for people with a visual impairment. Practically, all sorts of banking transactions can be dealt with from your home computer without you having to depend on sighted help or having to go looking for a physical bank.
However, many online banks are designed in such a way that they e.g. cannot be accessed via a so-called screen reader which is used by the visually impaired to e.g. browse websites. Practically, this means that the visually impaired have a limited range of banks to choose from, because when doing so they are required to take into account whether they are able to use the online bank or not. Thus, paying attention to favourable terms and offers will have to come second when a visually impaired person chooses her bank.
When contacting a bank in order to be a customer, unfortunately, the visually impaired person is often told that the bank is not planning to change the online bank in order for it to be accessible e.g. to the visually impaired. The reason given by the bank is often that costs will be too high compared to the user group who will actually benefit froom the adjustments. In our view, however, an accessible website will benefit all users regardless of their needs.