In a March 2005 Associated Press news article, studies showed that 15 million Americans suffer from Macular Degeneration, a genetic defect that is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly. That number is expected to dramatically increase as the baby-boomer population ages. In addition to this startling story, there are numerous causes of vision-related disabilities. Many vision problems are not included in the typical blindness estimates as they are from other disorders, disease, and trauma or associated with other genetic causes.

Assistive technology can help by giving users an alternate means of viewing information. Screen readers, Braille displays, user-defined stylesheets, magnification; all of these allow alternate means of viewing web pages. However, unlike

HAO

, many

search engine optimization

tactics interfere with the user experience for these technologies. By using amateurish, misinformed and thoughtless tactics, disabled users are unable to understand web pages and are essentially told to "stay away" because they are not able to view the information as a "normal" person may. These tactics may be hidden from regular users, but because the optimizer is only thinking of rankings, alternate browsers and technology and those using them are subjected to poorly designed and poorly marketed pages.

page [1] [2] [3] [4]